


kristy thomas in a leather duster

by shaekspeares



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Basement of Doom, Canon-Typical Behavior, Copious Star Trek and/or Passions watched, Gen, Mild 90s Casual Ableism, Monster of the Week, One-Shot, Reluctant Babysitter Spike, Roommates From Hell, Season/Series 04, Slice of Life, Spike's offensive thoughts about Americans, Spike-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29860200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaekspeares/pseuds/shaekspeares
Summary: The monster of the week turns Xander twelve; a basement-bound Spike plays beleaguered babysitter. Also, chez Harris continues to prove a soul-deadening environment for both gormless pre-teens and already soulless vampires. Welcome to Sunnydale.
Relationships: Also generally, Scoobies & Spike (BtVS), Spike & Dawn Summers, Xander Harris & Dawn Summers, Xander Harris & Spike, implied relationships - Relationship, mentioned Xander Harris/Anya Jenkins
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	kristy thomas in a leather duster

**Author's Note:**

> First disclaimer in that my primary source of interaction with Buffy-verse has always been the comics, so any blips in setting are down to my mis-remembering show-canon. Buffy-proper and I have a complicated relationship due to my being estranged with its father, but I'll save the Joss Whedon manifesto for another longer BTVS piece I plan on writing sometime. 
> 
> I really don't know where this fic came from other than I love perennial roommates Spike and Xander and I also really enjoy even ol' soulless Spike having to interact with children/Dawn, so I thought it'd be fun to combine the two somehow. Also, I always find it supremely weird that the show never makes Xander's undying vendetta against vampires related to the Jesse thing rather than vague misogyny, but that's just me.
> 
> Quick note, despite this being a Xander and Spike focused story absolutely nothing happens between them seeing as Xander spends most of this fic a literal child. Ditto for any other relationships- Anya makes some awkward references here and there, but obviously no one acts on them. 
> 
> Anyways I am supposed to be cramming for two exams so I'll just drop this and go. Enjoy the read.

It feels like he’s just gone to sleep when he’s rudely awakened by banging from upstairs, Scoobies stomping down into the basement like a herd of Pantagruel demons.

If the volume alone hadn’t given them away, then the shoes would have, he notes groggily, squinting at the ceiling with grim disgust; Harris is many things, but a wearer of cute little arse-kicking heels he is not. As a matter of fact, he can’t make out Harris’ lumbering footfall coming down the stairs at all, which is odd. Not usual for the girls to come traipsing in, but even less so when Harris isn’t around.

Not that he cares either way, but he won’t be caught asleep by the Slayer and her lackeys; he shifts rapidly upwards into a casual slouching posture, hits the remote at random just in time for the Slayer’s grating voice to hit his ears.

“Spike! Are you down here?”

“‘M busy,” Spike replies, disinterestedly fixing the television, which has deplorably landed on Harris’ preferred brand of Saturday morning cartoons. The Slayer, of course, couldn’t possibly let him cling to any illusion of vampiric mystery, and so snorts aggressively as she nears, somehow managing to convey her condescendingly cocked hip through sound alone.

“I think you can put Marvin the Martian on hold.”

He gives her his most unruffled shrug, eyes on the screen. “Think not.”

Predictably, the remote is snatched from his hand and the television turned off, so that his gaze falls on her reflection (hip cocked, naturally) instead, arms crossed expectantly and bright-coloured top riding high above her toned stomach. Spike’s own stomach grumbles. Buffy grabs him by the shoulder and yanks him around.

“I don’t have the time for this. Willow?”

“Hi, Spike,” Red says, in the kind of hesitant tone that never bodes well for anyone involved. Spike doesn’t bother to stifle his mental groan as he drags his gaze over to her where she stands fidgeting at the bottom of the stairs. “Um, buddy, you want to come down and meet Spike?”

“Look, Slayer,” Spike starts, scowling back up towards the usual mastermind behind his daily agonies. “Can you just spit out whatever atrocity you need me for today and make do with the damned niceties?”

“Language,” Buffy hisses, and then breaks into the sort of faux-affable smile that usually precedes an unhinged bout of violence. “Here he is!”

“Here who-“ Spike begins, and then squints in uncomprehending disbelief as some brat comes stumbling down the stairs in ridiculously oversized clothes, glancing curiously between Spike and the Slayer before coming to a stop next to the witch. There is a beat of very awkward silence, and then he can’t help himself.

“Is this supposed to be a bribe?”

“What?” The Slayer barks immediately, smile cracking into a scowl. “What the he-heck is wrong with you? You think we’d feed you children?”

“Well what the hell am I supposed to think?” Spike retorts, jumping to his feet so he at least regains the height advantage. “Unless this is the demon of the week you want me to dispatch-“

He pauses, considers the kid, who is staring open-mouthed at him. There _is_ something shifty about him.

“He’s not a demon!” Buffy snaps, impatient. “That’s _Xander!_ ”

Cogs turn. Spike whips around to stare at the kid, who stares back. Brown hair, brown eyes, gormless kick-me sort of look to him- and yes, the sort of hideous ensemble Harris is likely to subject the inhabitants of Sunnydale to.

“Well, that’s lovely,” Spike says, slowly, raising his eyes to Red, who now looks especially squirmy. “And why’s he six, all of a sudden? Regressed to his mental age?”

“He got cursed,” Buffy retorts, the _duh_ implied. “By those demons we’ve been tracking- the Thingy-Wingys-“

“The Te’hre’Wesites?”

“ _What_ ever, which _you_ said were all leaving town-“

“Didn’t say when, did I-“

“The point being, Spike,” Red interjects, rapid-fire, “That Xander accidentally walked into some kind of ceremony of theirs and they scattered while we were distracted, so we need to track them down and also figure out how to change him back, and obviously we all agree we can’t really have Xander around magic and demons and stuff until we know how this works so it really makes the most sense for him to be at home and since you’re at home anyways-“

“Oh, no,” Spike starts, with dawning outrage, “You’re not leaving me here playing baby-sitter, absolutely not-“

“We’ll call you,” Red promises hastily, dropping down a little to squeeze Harris’ arms with obvious regret. “I’m really sorry about this, Xander, we’ll come by as soon as we can, okay?”

“You need me to hunt the demons!” Spike protests, disbelieving.

“No, we need me to hunt the demons, especially when the sun is rising,” the Slayer says, somewhere between smug and unhappy. “And we need Willow and Tara for magic, and Giles for research, and anyways we’re not getting Xander near any danger when he’s like this.”

“Then take him to your place!”

“We can’t just leave Xander alone at ours all day! Dawn has school, and my mom has to work.”

Spike flings his hands in the air. “Can’t you ask the damn demon bint?”

Brief pause. Red and the Slayer exchange looks.

“Well, the thing is…”

“Anya said no,” the Slayer says, bluntly, and then stabs him in the chest with a righteous finger, lowering her voice to an angry whisper. “More importantly, Spike, you have no choice. _We’re_ doing _you_ a solid, remember? Xander’s letting you _live_ here. So either you play nice and look out for him for a couple of days-”

“ _Days?_ ”

“Or I tie you to your chair and you do it anyways,” Buffy finishes, patiently now. “Your choice.”

Spike hisses murderously, spins around, paces. Blast it all to hell. He can worm his way out of this somehow- sleep through the days, make his way out at night, threaten to gut the brat if he tries to tell. He pauses, warming to the idea. Might not be so bad, actually, having some idiot child around to intimidate- a bit like having a minion again. The kid can sleep in the chair, while he’s at it.

“Don’t bother trying to scam your way out of this,” Buffy interjects rudely, scrunching her brows together. “We already told Xander all about you on the way here. He knows about the chip, and he knows all of your weaknesses.”

“And he’ll tell us if you even try to mess with him,” Red echoes, gone all scary-witch. Spike growls in defeat.

“ _Fine_. But I want good blood, ‘f I’m stuck here until he changes back. And booze.”

“You’re not drinking while Xander’s like this!”

“Why not? Harris senior-“ Spike starts, and then shuts up when Red’s expression turns murderous. “All right, all right! Smokes, at least.”

“I guess as long as you smoke outside-“

“Fine,” Buffy agrees, business-like. “We’ll bring you your blood and cancer-sticks. You look after Xander. We’ll check in when we have news.”

Her posture softens when she looks at Harris, who has been disturbingly silent this whole time, scary-Slayer vibes receding as she squeezes his shoulder.

“You’re okay with this, right? He can’t do anything to you, I promise.”

“I’m okay,” Harris agrees, glancing towards Spike before refocusing on Buffy, who smiles at him with a strange blend of guilt and concerned affection, leaning to kiss him on the forehead.

“That’s our Xan-man. We really gotta motor, but we’ll see you soon, okay?”

Harris only nods, cheeks flushed a brilliant pink, which makes Spike snort even through his seething. Of course little Harris is practically creaming himself over small-blonde-and-murderous.

“Bye, Xander,” Red exhales, dropping to squeeze him to her. “Love you. Spike, be nice, okay? Please.”

Spike grumbles noncommittally, watches as they make their way back upwards, Buffy’s steps growing more determined as she ascends. Nice angle from down where he’s stood.

“I’m twelve,” Harris announces, jolting him out of his haze of hateful admiration. Spike stares down at him.

“What?”

“You said I was six,” Harris explains, shifting his grip on his ridiculously large jeans. “I’m not six. I’m twelve.”

“Bugger me,” Spike mutters, and very ardently regrets not staking himself the second he laid foot in this accursed basement.

It takes him a couple of minutes of moping to pay attention to the kid, who has moved to the couch to watch cartoons. He’s still sat pooled in clothing; it occurs to Spike that the Slayer might at least have sacrificed one of her tight little shirts to clothe Harris with.

“Right,” Spike says, somewhat gratified when Harris’ attention immediately snaps away from the television. The real Harris has perfected the art of tuning him out a little too well. “You obviously can’t wear that for the rest of the week.”

Harris blinks down at himself, brows knitting. “I don’t think anything’s gonna fit me.”

“Don’t you have any old clothes lying around?” Spike asks, eyeing Harris’ wardrobe hatefully. The humiliation of having to wear one of his hideous shirts is still fresh on his mind. “Doubt you’ve ever cleaned out that hovel.”

“What’s a hovel?” Harris asks. Spike exhales.

“Just check the- oh, forget it.”

Ransacking Harris’ closet reveals no convenient children’s clothing, but Harris, having drifted closer to observe Spike fighting his obnoxious slogan tees, chews pensively at his thumb before pointing upstairs.

“I might have some stuff in my room.”

“Your-“ Spike says, and then glances upwards. Huh. Right. He supposes he’d known on some level Harris hadn’t always lived in the basement. And it’s not even a terrible idea.

“What day is it?” Harris inquires, as Spike wonders whether he lost braincells with age, and whether it would be possible to restore them somehow.

“Saturday. Why?”

“Mom and dad are asleep,” Harris declares, relaxing visibly. “So we can go get my stuff.”

He casts Spike a would-be covert glance, as if trying to gauge if his casual act is fooling him. Spike feels second-hand embarrassment for his terrible lying, emerging brusquely from the closet to shoo Harris upwards.

“Then go. C’mon. Hurry. Can’t have ‘em seeing you like this.”

“You’re not coming up?”

“Vampire,” Spike pronounces, slowly. “Sunlight.”

“Oh, right,” Harris says, brown eyes shining with sudden interest, though he shifts obediently to the stairs. “Okay. I’ll be back.”

Spike listens to him awkwardly climb the stairs, notes the way his footsteps fade perceptibly once he leaves the basement. Funny: grown-up Harris does that too, now that he thinks about it. Like a bloody bull in a china shop downstairs, but he’s practically soundless the moment he hits the living-room.

Kid Harris is quieter on the way down too, lacking the bulk of his older self; Spike raises a brow at him as he descends the stairs two steps at a time a couple of minutes later, flushed with success.

“I found a bunch of stuff! And a lot of it almost fits! I guess I never threw it out or anything?”

He’s dressed himself in another horrible ensemble, but the shirt only hangs a little low and loose, and with the drawstring tightened the trousers sort of almost fit. It’s better than before, at least. Kid Harris is a scrawny little twerp.

“My room upstairs is still super the same,” Harris continues, dumping a heap of clothes next to the bed sloppily folded. “Only with newer stuff. Well- not new, it’s all dusty, but new to me, anyways. Or not really since I’m actually the old version of new me? It’s kind of like in that Twilight Zone episode where they meet the-“

“There it is,” Spike mutters, rolling his eyes. In a way he’s sort of relieved Harris feels adjusted enough to ramble incoherently; he’d been starting to think the situation had traumatised him enough that he was going to have to play child therapist.

Harris cuts himself off, though, expression gone reproachfully self-aware. “Sorry.”

It’s so incongruous Spike has to double-check he didn’t hallucinate it, because it’s a cold day in hell where Xander Harris apologises to him for anything, but mini-Harris looks abashed enough that he raises both brows and nods in slightly gobsmacked acknowledgment. He can’t even gloat about it, he realises, just as the urge manifests: the Slayer will have his balls, for one, but also there’s no fun in it with Harris like this. Whoever this brat is, it’s not the spiteful half-wit loser who gets his kicks tormenting Spike.

“Why’ve you been so quiet anyways?” Spike demands, instead of doing something insane like telling Harris not to apologise. “Can’t imagine you taking this all in stride.”

“Well,” Harris says, tentatively drifting towards the edge of the bed, “I was kind of freaked at first. I mean, I’m still freaked, because this is really weird, but at the start I was _way_ freaked, ‘cause I didn’t know where I was and there were those weird demon guys trying to kill me, but then Buffy started beating them up and they all ran away. And first we were all kind of wigging but then Will told me everything and it _sounded_ kind of crazy but she has photos of us and stuff and those demon guys were totally real, so I sorta had to believe her.”

“Forget I asked,” Spike mutters, wondering how he’s not out of breath, and then squints at him. “Slayer said they told you about me.”

“Yeah,” Harris says, and looks a little less casual. He smells a little bit of fear, mostly of curiosity, so Spike figures she didn’t lie.

“She said you were, um, a vampire. And usually she’d stake you but some evil scientists put a chip in your head so now you can’t hurt people? So now you’re kind of our friend and stuff?”

“Let me guess,” Spike says, flatly. “Witch said that last bit.”

“Uh, yeah,” Harris admits, and then inhales with a burst of courage. “So- are you really?”

“Really what?”

“A vampire,” Harris repeats, all expectant interest. Spike blinks, considers his options, decides upon the obvious. He’s still watching Harris’ dumb expression closely when he vamps out, so he has the pleasure of watching him jump.

“Holy cow!” Harris yelps, fear spiking, but it vanishes just as quickly as he scurries back upwards, advancing on Spike with eyes like saucers. “Those are your real teeth?”

“What’s it look like to you?” Spike manages, caught slightly off-guard by Harris’ lack of self-preservation. Then again, this is Harris. He’s just surprised that his loathing of vampires isn’t a base genetic condition- he’s always assumed Harris held an undying grudge against vampire-kind for kicks.

“Woah,” Harris is saying, not quite crowding him but definitely within tooth range. “Does it hurt?”

“Transforming?” Spike asks, and finds himself answering. “Nah. ’S like pulling a face.”

“Right,” Harris echoes, still peering with naked fascination at his mouth. Then his eyes flicker back upwards. “And your eyes are all yellow and glowy. Oh, man. Jesse’s gonna flip.”

No stirring of recognition; Spike frowns. “What’s that, now?”

“Jesse,” Harris repeats, absently. “We were just arguing about this the other day ‘cause he said vampires would have red eyes like bats, but I told him bats have like orange-y eyes anyways, and plus in movies and stuff it’s usually yellow.”

“Depends on the vamp,” Spike replies, still somewhat stuck on this Jesse character. Someone who left Sunnydale, presumably. “Pointless argument to have, since you didn’t even know vampires existed.”

“Well, they do,” Harris counters, staring at his forehead. “So it wasn’t.”

“Take a picture, why don’t you?”

“Can I?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Harris says, deflating. “Why?”

“Won’t work _,_ ” Spike mutters, avoiding his giant guileless eyes. He doesn’t have a soft spot for children, damn it- he drank from them easily enough, back in the good old days, or at least watched Drusilla indulge. She’d kept one as a pet for months or years, once, and he’d never paid the thing any mind.

“So,” Harris says, after a beat, hovering backwards on the couch. He looks unsure. “What do we do now? Usually?”

The mental image of Red eating his entrails surfaces. Spike sighs, settles back into the chair, gestures broadly at the television.

“Usually, I listen to you watch one of your little shows, and occasionally bitch about the quality, in a very friendly and non-aggressive manner. That sound doable?”

“Sure!” Harris agrees, lighting up with embarrassing ease before he abruptly glances upwards. “Are we gonna-“

“Your folks never come down here.”

“Oh,” Harris says, in a strange mixture of tones. Spike firmly ignores the relief and the disappointment alike. “Cool, then.”

If only to spare them a day of pre-pubescent angst, Spike throws himself onto his sword. “So, Star Trek…”

He spends the next four hours listening to Harris excitedly rambling about ‘owning all of Next Gen’ and how Deep Space Nine is _so groundbreaking_ , but at least he doesn’t have to pretend like he doesn’t know all of the characters’ names by this point. Under duress he might even confess to deriving some enjoyment out of allowing himself to argue with the kid on the relative superiority of Kirk and Picard as captains.

He’s not entirely lost his mind, though. They’re watching Passions when it comes on.

At some point in the middle of the afternoon Harris’ stomach starts grumbling and Spike sends him off to fix himself lunch before remembering adult Harris’ diet and reconsidering, sifting through beer and noodles himself for a sign of something edible. He manages to find some bread and ham, leaves the kid to make himself a sandwich, which he eats with no complaint, back on his spot on the couch.

“Spike?” Harris asks, through mouthfuls, head cocked in thought. “What do you eat?”

Spike gives him a look. Harris flushes, swallows. “Oh. Right. But- whose? Since you can’t hurt people?”

“Animal,” Spike admits, with a sufficiently disgusted expression. “Sometimes human when the Watcher gets it from the hospital to bribe me.”

Harris’ brow furrows. “The Watcher?”

“Rupert,” Spike corrects. “Giles. Old man. Very stuffy old Brit.”

“You’re British too, right?” Harris asks, doubtfully. “Cause you don’t sound super British.”

“An’ what’s that supposed to sound like?”

“I dunno,” Harris shrugs, squirming. “Like- James Bond, I guess.”

“Americans,” Spike mutters, and leans back in his chair. “You done with the twenty questions yet, whelp?”

“I have way more than twenty,” Harris declares, all unapologetic enthusiasm. “I mean- vampires, you know? And- Buffy, and stuff.”

“I’m not answering those.”

“Oh,” Harris says, eyeing him. “You guys don’t seem like you get along.”

“Could put it that way.”

“But we’re friends, right?”

This has to be some kind of joke, Spike thinks, as he boggles at the idiot; he’s on some terrible home-made prank tape. But no one jumps out from behind a couch, and Harris keeps eyeing him whilst appearing gradually more embarrassed, so-

“I mean,” Harris pushes on, self-consciously, “You live here, right? And not at the Magic Shop or whatever. And we stay in and veg together. So I just thought-“

“We’re not not friends,” Spike manages to lie. Abject suffering. Is this what his unlike has come to?

“Cool,” Harris says, interrupting Spike’s existential crisis with relieved satisfaction as he polishes off the last of his meagre sandwich. “Dude, this is such a good episode.”

“They better be killing that Romulan,” Spike grumbles, and does not complain beyond that, because he can’t think of any viable alternative that doesn’t involve instant cremation.

They spend the rest of the afternoon watching Star Trek in a semi-companionable atmosphere. Spike fantasises about beating the Slayer’s skull in with a Louboutin heel.

Harris starts loudly yawning somewhere around ten, having inhaled the microwaved and very plausibly expired cup-a-soup Spike dug out of a cupboard. This is somehow startling to Spike, in that Harris Prime is seemingly always running on fumes, but prefers to manifest this fatigue in slouching in a vegetative state in front of the television, beer in hand, until midnight has come and gone.

Maybe he just doesn’t like to sleep too long with Spike around. Quite reasonable of him, actually.

“Ought to get to bed,” Spike tells mini-Harris, who yawns again, then belatedly tries to disguise the yawning.

“I’m not tired, though.”

“Yeah?” Spike says, raising a brow. “You want to lie to my face again?”

Harris’s face contorts, striving to settle on one emotion; guilty resignation wins as he glances at his feet.

“I don’t normally go to bed early. ’S just cause of the magic.”

“Uh huh,” Spike says, realising with growing amusement that Harris is trying to play cool in front of him. “Sure. Magic. Really sucks the stamina out of a man.”

Harris nods rapidly even as he gets to his feet, happy for the excuse. “We can stay up later tomorrow night, right?”

Tomorrow, Spike thinks, gloomily. That’s right. Several days ahead of him, with the joys of watching endless hours of cheesy dated sci-fi with a hyperactive pre-teen that he can’t even eat.

“Sure. Yeah. Late as you want. ‘M not your dad.”

“Okay,” Harris says, and then looks at him curiously. “Where are you sleeping?”

For one long moment he stares in calculating silence at the bed, then he sighs.

“Chair, usually.”

Harris gives the chair a dubious look. “Seriously?”

“Dead serious,” Spike pronounces, wryly. “Usually you tie me to it.”

“I tie you to a chair?” Harris asks, and looks more bewildered than guilty, the little bastard. “Why? Do you usually sneak out when I’m asleep?”

“Not even once,” Spike declares, in the tone of one gravely oppressed. It’s technically true, if only because he hasn’t spent a night not chained to a bathtub or tied to Harris’ cruddy chair since the Scoobies became his dubious protectors. “You just don’t trust me.”

“Oh,” Harris says, and casts Spike a squinty look. “Um, sorry, I guess. Should I tie you up now?”

So much for his child-like sympathies. Spike gives him a flat look; Harris pulls a face, scooting back to his bed.

“I mean, it’s probably fine if you just sleep there. You told Buffy you’d look after me and stuff.”

Somehow, this blasé assumption of obedience is a far more effective slight than any of Harris’ usual vicious barbs. Spike bares his fangs discontentedly.

“’M not the Slayer’s guard dog.”

“Yeah,” Harris agrees mindlessly around a yawn, clambering into the sheets. “You’re the guard vampire.”

He looks disconcertingly out of place on the wide dingy mattress, Spike observes, taking his first real look at the kid amidst the grimy bachelor’s pad furniture and the sloppy heaps of assorted memorabilia. Twelve, he’d said? Preposterous, though it’s been centuries since Spike’s really been around kids, bar the Niblet- and she’s something like fourteen, so he supposes Harris must be right. He looks stupidly small anyways, all gangly limbs and big blinking eyes. On the actual Harris those are at least proportionate enough to the bulk to lose that freakish skin-crawly effect.

Christ. So much for his bloody smokes. He hits the light, throws himself into the chair. Maybe he can at least watch some true crime crap when the kid falls asleep, feast on some good old fashioned guts and gore.

“Spike?”

“ _What_?”

Rustling. Harris is sitting and trying to look in his direction, blinking in the dark.

“Don’t you want a blanket or something?”

It takes Spike several seconds to scrape together a response.

“A blanket.”

“Or a pillow?” Harris offers, a little sheepishly. “I dunno how vampires sleep but since you’re not in a coffin-“

“I’ll pass.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Go to sleep, Harris.”

Only once the kid’s breathing evens out does he allow himself to hiss in disbelieving frustration.

He wakes up the next morning to darkness and the TV playing almost inaudibly, blinking in disorientation as he readjusts to his environment. Having the boy tie him down every night has forced his sleep schedule to adapt, which has made him groggy and malcontent but also gotten him used to sunlight streaming cheerfully downwards from where Harris pulls open every curtain he can get his hands on. Waking to darkness has become a somewhat unexpected luxury.

Speaking of.

“’T time is it?”

“Seven thirty,” Harris says, through a mouthful of cereal. He’s sat cross-legged on the couch on the side nearest to Spike, bowl perched on his lap and still clad in his ill-fitting pyjamas.

“Why’re you up so damn early?”

“That’s when I normally get up,” Harris blinks, swallowing his spoonful with a worried twist to his mouth. “I tried to be really quiet.”

Probably true, given that Spike hadn’t woken until the crunching started. It makes him twitchy to know that Harris had just sat there watching him sleep- at least the normal Harris makes a point of banging around insufferably to wake him up, or just leaves for work without a glance back. Then again, this Harris doesn’t have any better to do than sit around here, and lacks his older self’s predisposition towards making Spike’s life a living hell; he probably meant nothing by it.

The thought gives him pause as he rolls his shoulders. He’s always sort of assumed Harris’ catty attitude towards him was about evenly split a personal dislike and an ingrained hatred of vampires, since the boy seems to have such a bone to pick with the species as a whole. Demons generally he treats with pragmatic wariness, but vampires he clearly loathes- spends half his conversations with Spike and Peaches alike spewing fairly imaginative vampire-centric hate speech, whereas where Anyanka is concerned his human prejudices seem to vanish. Mind you, that latter point may just be because Harris thinks with his dick, seeing as he can hardly be thinking with anything else, but then Spike likes to think of himself as an equally corrupting influence and Harris has never once appeared swayed to sympathy by _his_ dark charms.

Of course, it could be argued that there is a slight difference between Spike’s current chip-induced impotence and Anyanka’s novel humanity, but then bloody Angelus-as-Angel is all human angst himself, and Harris still treats him like a raving menace despite the soul, all for a relapse or two.

Spike had always figured the whole vampire vendetta was just typical human dullness on Harris’ part. The demons they encounter on the weekly are by and large brainless idiots, and the the Initiative are just evil humans, but vampires are an actual threat to the rag-tag loons at chez Summers, and not so easily dispatched. Humans love to hate what they’re afraid of; Harris has always struck him as the type to do so resolutely. So it could just be that this Harris, having been thoroughly informed of the humiliation of Spike’s current condition, is not afraid of his vampirism, and thus apparently harbours no racially-driven ill-will towards him.

It feels like more than that, though. He turns his gaze thoughtfully back to Harris junior, who jumps, caught out, and looks rapidly back towards the television, munching hastily on his cereal.

“What’re you looking at?”

“Nothing,” Harris mutters, spraying milk, then glances shiftily back at him. “What does blood taste like?”

Spike blinks, furrows his brow. “What?”

“There’s some in the fridge,” Harris says, by way of explanation. When Spike continues to look blankly at him he begins to elaborate. “Cause- okay, blood is gross to me, but you guys drink it all the time, except your bodies are still kinda the same as normal humans, right? Do vampires get special taste buds so it tastes good?”

“No,” Spike sputters, and then shakes himself, crosses his arms. “’S the demon. When you get turned your body loses its soul and the demon takes over. Demons like blood.”

“Oh,” Harris says, wide-eyed again. “So you’re not actually human? You’re a demon?”

“‘M not a human at all, I’m a _vampire_ ,” Spike retorts, irked. “And it’s not- well, I s’pose I am a demon, but it’s not- it’s more like it’s a part of me.”

“What’s the other part?”

“The- d’you ever stop asking questions?”

“Sorry,” Harris retreats, shrinking back at the tone. “I was just wondering.”

Goddamnit. The actual Harris isn’t even remotely sensitive to Spike’s outbursts. He groans silently, thinking of the Slayer rocking up to find Harris all puppy-eyed and sulky, forces his face into something resembling a smile.

“’S fine. Just- pace it out a bit, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harris mumbles, still awkward. “Um, I’m gonna go get dressed.”

He shuffles off to the kitchen to deposit his bowl in the sink, muttering to himself once he thinks he’s out of Spike’s earshot, all self-indulgent flagellation.

Spike is unwillingly reminded of how little the real Harris attempts to verbally interact with his parents, and of how freely he babbles around the witch by contrast. It’s an irritating train of thought- small wonder only Red would put up with the constant stream of nonsense, really. Spike’s not in the business of shedding tears over the plight of poor old Harris and his mean folks.

He’s not particularly fond of them himself, though. Even Harris is a shining beacon of humanity by contrast.

He was right, though, he thinks, refocusing his thoughts on the previous line of questioning. It’s not just that mini-Harris isn’t currently scared of Spike: it’s that he actually seems quite excited by the fact his roommate is a blood-sucking monster. Which, now that he thinks about it, seems extremely in-character for Harris. The guy is an obsessive geek who manages to derive referential enjoyment out of every demon they encounter- it’s retroactively bizarre that Spike hasn’t been subjected to the twenty questions schtick before, even despite Harris’ personal hatred of him.

Maybe Harris’ insistent grudge against vampires runs deeper than he thought. If it’s spared him real-Harris’ questions he’s not about to complain.

The shower running jolts him out of his reflection, and he ups the volume on the television, shifting listlessly through the channels. The only good thing showing at this time of the morning is some red-neck hunting show, so he contents himself with staring at animal corpses and wincing at the garbled English of the protagonists. It’s piss-poor entertainment, but it does make him hungry.

He’s just fixed himself a drab bowl of blood-soaked Shreddies when someone knocks from upstairs and the outer door swings open, Harris scurrying out of the bathroom with a toothbrush still stuck in his mouth at the sound before remembering himself and running back to the sink.

“Hi,” the witch calls chirpily, tell-tale rustling making Spike perk up and ditch the soggy cereal as her shopping bags come into view. “I come bearing gifts! Is everyone presentable?”

“Never,” Spike says agreeably, circling her predatorily as she gives him a disapproving moue. “What gifts, then?”

“Here you are,” Red replies, passing him a bag, in the tones of a pre-school teacher humouring an unruly student. “Anya did a store-run last night. Cigarettes, for all your nightly brooding needs, and a lot of nice fresh blood, yum.”

“Ta,” Spike says, sarcastic, gliding away to go shove the blood in the fridge.

  
“Hi Wills,” Harris says, a little timid, re-emerging from the bathroom to an enthusiastic beam.

“Hey, you! How are you feeling? Sleep okay? I’m so sorry we didn’t call last night- Tara and I were magicking all afternoon and I conked out before I could even have dinner, so I figured I’d come by as soon as I could this morning, ‘cause you used to be up so early-“

“That’s okay,” Harris says, relaxing into an awkward grin. “Me and Spike just watched a bunch of Star Trek. And he showed me his vampire face.”

“Did he now?” Red asks, in a neutral tone, brow rising as Spike scowls. He has the unhappy impression she’s more hung up on the Star Trek bit than the potential intimidation. Harris only nods enthusiastically.

“Is that a thing you guys all have? Like, you have a witch face, and Buffy has a Slayer face, or something?”

“Not so much, no,” Red considers, then lowers her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Though Buffy does look kinda scary in Slayer-mode.”

Harris bobs his head in agreement, smile gone wide now.

“Way scary. Totally shiver-worthy.”

Red regards his grinning face with so much affection Spike looks away.

“Anya picked you up some clothes too, but they’re a little bit, um. Maybe not quite your style?”

Harris rustles through the bag, then hiccups out a startled laugh. “Oh, man.”

“Like I said,” Red says, a little sheepish. “She’s not so good with the kid stuff.”

“Yeah,” Harris echoes, wonderingly. “You’re not kidding.”

Spike covertly shifts to glance back at the two of them, can’t help but snort when he sees the slacks and button-up tops he’s holding.

“Demon bint trying to dress ‘im up while she has the chance, then?”

“Seems like it,” Red concedes, half-smiling in that funny way she does whenever she can’t quite conceal that Spike’s sparkling wit has gotten to her but she’s not sure she should show it. Spike smirks back at her.

“Which one is Anya again?” Harris asks, dropping the heap of clothes with surprising care onto his bed. Red casts Spike a look which he returns gamely until she winces and laughs awkwardly.

“Um, that’d be your girlfriend.”

“Your girlfriend the vengeance demon,” Spike adds helpfully, as Harris gapes.

“I have- wait, _demon_?”

“Spike!” Red exclaims, and then flutters her hands would-be reassuringly. “No, no, Anya’s retired! She’s a human now! An extremely normal, very- personable human!”

“Woah,” Harris says, looking between the two of them in shock, before his expression shifts into the kind of dumb-struck delight Spike only ever sees whenever the boy watches Anyanka strut away after a very warm goodbye. “That’s so cool.”

“It- is,” Red agrees, rapidly, somewhere between relieved and weirded out. “Very cool. She’s very cool. Right, Spike?”

“Smoking hot, too,” Spike confirms, agreeably, which makes the witch flush but the boy’s disbelieving grin grow twice its size.

“Really?”

“Right, so not what I came here to talk about!” Red says, clapping her hands together as Spike mouths an empathetic yes over her shoulder. “Giles said he’d found some leads yesterday, and Buffy’s been on a rampage, so we were thinking we should all get together at the Summers’ place tonight, if you could bring Xander once the sun’s set.”

“Why there? Watcher’s place is usually HQ.”

“Usually,” Red agrees, bobbing her head, “But there have been a lot of Initiative guys around it today, and also Dawn and Joyce really want to see Xander, so.”

“Not still worried about the whole exposing him to magic thing, then.”

“Tara and I did that sensing stuff yesterday,” Red dismisses, pushing strands of hair behind her ear. “We still can’t quite pinpoint the exact spell, but it’s definitely our Xander, de-aged, not young Xander swapped into our time or an alternate dimension kind of thing.”

“No duh,” Harris chimes in, around a smile. “I’d need an evil goatee for that.”

Red smiles back at him as Spike clicks his fingers. “Right, so Harris is good to hang with the lot of you. Can’t he stay with Joyce until he’s himself?”

The witch sighs like she saw this coming, rubbing at her arm with something like disappointment. “We don’t want to leave Joyce with two magicked kids in her care when Buffy’s out patrolling every night. It’d be asking for trouble.”

Having the Niblet and the kid with no one but Joyce Summers to ward off any creatures of the night- very easy prey, Spike concedes reluctantly. Very tempting stuff for any big bad worth its name. That it puts him on edge to imagine is neither here nor there.

“I can stay by myself,” Harris offers, cautiously, eyes flicking rapidly towards the girl when Spike looks up. “If Spike doesn’t wanna stay. I’ll just wait here until you guys fix it.”

Spike doesn’t have to look at the witch to feel her radiating disapproval, _look what you did_ practically broadcasted in his direction; he twitches defensively, crosses his arms before thinking better of it and shoving them into his pockets. If Angelus could see him now…

“You kicking me out, whelp?”

“Huh?” Harris says, caught out, and then shakes his head extremely empathetically. “No, no, I just- I mean, I don’t need babysi- _watching_ , so ’s fine if you wanna do other things, y’know?”

He looks so nakedly concerned that Spike might have for a moment taken his posturing at face value that Spike feels a very unwelcome burst of amused affection for him before he manages to stomp it down.

“Honey, Spike can’t even go outside in the day,” Red interjects, while Spike is still casting around for an acceptable balance between aloofness and something sufficiently friendly that she won’t have his head. “And right now he’s hiding from the soldier guys at night, remember? I’m sure he’s more than happy to have someone to hang out with.”

“Much obliged,” Spike mutters, just sincerely enough that the sarcasm flies over the kid’s head. Red pulls a face at him.

“So is everybody gonna be there tonight?” Harris asks abruptly, as if the thought has just occurred to him. “You said- me, and you guys, and Buffy, and Anya, and, um- the librarian-“

“Giles, right-“

“And- is that it?” Harris pauses. “Oh, Tara! She’s the other witch girl, you said? And your roommate?”

“She sure is,” Spike leers, enjoying the pink flush that crawls up the witch’s neck and the reproachful look he gets.

“Okay,” Harris says, looking curiously between them. “Is that everybody?”

“Almost,” Red answers, biting her lip a little. “There’s Dawn too. Buffy’s sister.”

Spike expects some kind of reaction- Buffy’s _what_? - but then of course this Harris doesn’t know the Slayer either, so news of a sister means nothing to him. Instead, he simply nods, mouthing the name to himself, then gives the witch an expectant look.

“So Jesse’s not coming tonight?”

Vampirism informs Spike that Red’s blood doesn’t literally freeze, but she goes so still he might have bought it otherwise, eyes flashing with something dark like a raw wound before she does an admirable job of slapping a smile over it.

“No, he’s- out of town, this week.”

“Oh,” Harris says, with obvious disappointment, sagging a little. “To see his grandma?”

“Yeah,” Red manages, under Spike’s watchful scrutiny, heartening a little despite her persisting pallor. “And you know how she is. No phones, no nothing.”

“She’s crazy,” Harris agrees remorsefully, shaking his head. To Spike: “Last Thanksgiving she made Jesse _kill_ the turkey. With an _axe_.”

“Unbelievable,” Spike dead-pans, sweeping his gaze calculatingly towards the witch, who sets her jaw and then visibly rallies, clearing her throat.

“Hey, Xan, d’you wanna get started on folding those away while I help Spike set up his blood?”

“You need to set it up?” Harris asks, glancing towards the fridge. The girl nods rapidly.

“Just- remove the magical seals I put on earlier. It’s kind of ooky.”

Harris hesitates, clearly more than willing to witness this ookiness first-hand, but his instinct to comply with the witch has the upper hand; he turns to the pile of shirts instead. “Sure.”

“Thanks,” Red says, smiling warmly, and keeps it up as she pulls Spike along to the fridge. Only when the door swings open to hide her face does she drop it, expression going uncharacteristically bleak and stony as their eyes lock.

“We’re not talking about this right now.”

Spike shrugs. “Tonight, then.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Red deflects, staunch. “It’s none of your business.”

“Is if he keeps bringing the bloke up.”

“You have a cover story now,” Red retorts, unmoved. “Stick to that.”

“And how ‘m I supposed to act like I know who he’s talking about when he starts asking if the three of us are bosom-buddies?”

“You’re a vampire,” Red enunciates, with quiet determination. “ _Lie_. Chalk it up to puberty if he calls you out on any weirdness.”

She slams the fridge door with a flourish, cheery smile back on. “There! All done. How you getting on, Xan?”

He doesn’t like any of these people, Spike reminds himself, watching her patter over to Harris. Not a single one. Would happily snap Red’s throat if only the bloody chip weren’t in, no qualms about it.

Damned Drusilla, leaving him in this hell-hole. It’s wholly characteristic of the woman that she manages to drive him insane even when she’s not around. Serves her well when she comes back to find Spike’s gone crazier than she has as a natural result of being cooped up in loserville with the boy wonder.

Red stays on for an hour to watch Sunday morning cartoons, predictably susceptible to Harris’ cheery manipulations; Spike uses the opportunity to go smoke out of the door, stood just shadowed by the trees. From his spot atop the stairs he can just about filter out the sound of their chattering in favour of watching the cars driving by, nice wholesome families going about their daily routines.

A year ago this time he’d spent the Thanksgiving week blissed out on blood and booze.

He finishes his second cigarette, considers a third before thinking better of it. Red only got him two packs; who knows how long he’s going to be stuck in here before they magic Harris back. Typically Scooby concerns come in one of two forms, and this situation falls squarely in the second category, which means it won’t last longer than a week, but even another day of house arrest is going to drive him up the walls.

From downstairs, another ad-break reaches his ears, and then Red’s voice rises above Harris’ needling.

“No, no- Xander, I have to go, I have to solve this for _you_ -“

“If you really wanna help me out you can stay and watch one more,” Harris replies, grinning, which makes Red laugh and shake her head warningly.

“Nuh uh, not that easy. We gotta get back to the same age. You’re too much trouble, mister.”

“Hey, I’m not trouble!” Harris protests, and then calls upwards. “Spike! I’m super well-behaved, right?”

“No comment,” Spike retorts, crushing his cigarette under his heel and wondering how long the kid’s known he was eaves-dropping. The witch, however, is unswayed, collecting her things as Harris trails after her, the two of them appearing in the now crowded door-frame by Spike’s side.

“I’ll see you guys tonight, then?” Red asks, looking to Spike for confirmation. When he nods she smiles back at Harris, a hint less relaxed but just as earnest; his responding smile also seems a mite more awkward than he’d been minutes prior. Age difference spooking them both, Spike figures.

“Okay,” Red rallies, patting herself down before nodding. “Right. Leaving. Be nice to each other, ‘kay? And, um- ooh, maybe wear one of Anya’s shirts tonight? I think that’d probably make her happy, she’s kind of put-off by the whole- well, you know. Oh, just wear whatever you want. It doesn’t matter.”

“Got quite heated towards the end there, Red,” Spike comments, encouragingly. “Now turn ‘em all into frogs.”

“Hey,” Red flusters, doing the twitchy smile thing again and losing the fight when Harris pops his head out under Spike’s arm where he’s stretched across the doorframe.

“I second the frogs! I wanna see the frog thing!”

“Bad influence,” Red says, pointing to Spike, but she’s full-out smiling now. Spike withdraws his arm, steps back inside, recomposes himself. No fun bantering if everyone involved is all friendly about it.

“I’d get back to working on fixing this spell, then.”

“Yeah,” Red says, smile slipping, and leans in to hug Harris before pulling back, resolve-face on. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Bye, Will,” Harris calls, waving. Spike sees himself downstairs.

They kill time much the same way as the day prior; this time Harris makes himself lunch, and he watches Spike drink his blood with unabashed fascination.

“It’s like when you see something super gross happening and you can’t look away” is the explanation he gives when pushed, not especially embarrassed at being called out on it.

“Some might consider it bit of bad manners to stare like that,” Spike informs him. Really he’s just trying to figure him out- see what buttons he has to push. It’s not quite a direct replica of Harris senior’s cocktail of insecurities.

“Yeah, I know,” Harris admits, pulling a bit of a face. “But you’re a _vampire_ , and you’re in my _basement_. It’d be way weirder if I didn’t look. I’d have to be a total psycho not to.”

“Strong words.”

The kid gets worked up the closer they get to sunset, which Spike chalks up to nerves regarding the big meeting; genuine-product Harris is always so transparently desperate to be liked, and his younger self is somehow easier still to read. Who knew Harris was subtle?

In any event, the moment Spike starts eyeing the window the kid is up like a shot to figure out his outfit, an exercise that is somewhere between pathetic and comedic. Spike, naturally, watches the ordeal with relish, waiting for the boiling point.

Harris is strangely resistant to his mocking aura for a while, muttering nervously to himself as he flits between shirts, and Spike is just about reluctantly impressed by his resilience when Harris turns to look for his discarded socks and nearly jumps a foot in the air upon spotting him.

“Ah! Spike!”

“Boo,” Spike says, having not budged from his seat. Harris attempts to save face, fidgeting with his buttons, but his cheeks have gone pink.

“I forgot you were here.”

“Easy to forget, am I?”

“No,” Harris blurts, and then gives him a strangely layered look, still clutching his shirt clumsily. “Stop being sarcastic to me or I’ll tell Buffy.”

That he knows what sarcasm is and that he’s graduated to threats are both notable discoveries; Spike ignores them in favour of chasing the argument.

“You not fighting your own battles, mate? Big bad Slayer does it for you?”

“I’m _twelve_ ,” Harris replies, with precocious righteousness. “Also, I could hurt you worse than you could hurt me right now, remember? Hello, chip.”

Touché. Spike bares his teeth. “What’s with the closet panic?”

“Oh,” Harris starts, colouring again. “I just wanted to- do you think, uh, Anya will mind, if I-“

“Ah,” Spike says, knowingly. “Women troubles.”

Funny: Harris junior looks just like himself when he says that. Only this one doesn’t flip him off on instinct, or namedrop Spike’s own follies of the heart.  
  
“I just,” Harris says, and then goes quiet, withdrawn. Spike’s curiosity is piqued; he stares at him until he squirms. “I’ve never had a girlfriend before.”

Bloody hell.

“Think she’s your first in this life too,” Spike says, compromising between the urge to mock and the urge to sympathise. “And she manages to put up with you just fine when you’re wearing the usual.”

“Yeah, but- she bought me this stuff,” Harris says, patting down his shirt. “And it’s fancy.”

“Hardly imported silk, mate.”

“Yeah, well,” Harris mutters, and now really does shut up, suddenly mutinously committed to his task.

It occurs to Spike after a minute or two of abruptly weighty silence that this is still the Harris who pays his parents rent to live in their damp rotting basement, and that somehow his being laughably skint is less entertaining when he’s ten pounds sopping wet. He knows well enough it’s a sore spot; he digs his claws right into it whenever Harris gets on his nerves.

It’s different with the kid, though, he has to admit. This Harris has never thrown an insult back his way, and doesn’t even know well enough to treat him with anything but inquisitive friendliness. It’s like the Bit all over again, though he shudders to compare any iteration of Harris to her. There’s no particular satisfaction to be gained from the abuse.

Can’t exactly apologise to him, though. Still Harris, beneath the facade.

He slinks off the couch, spins the kid easily around by the shoulders, fixes the collar he’s been messing with for the past five minutes. Pats him down.

“Sun’s set. Let’s get moving.”

Harris doesn’t answer, gnawing at his lip, but two minutes out of the house and he’s talking a mile per minute, so Spike is forgiven.

“Are there gonna be vampires and soldiers and stuff on the way?” Harris asks about ten minutes into the walk. “Buffy said you could still fight demons but not people.”

“If ‘m lucky they’ll get you before I rip them in half,” Spike says, very mildly, judging by the unconcerned laughter this provokes.

The actual walk is tranquil, though- no sign of danger anywhere. The demon makes its discontentment known, rumbling louder on instinct as they near the Summers house.

Harris draws to a dead stop as the near the driveway, swallowing audibly. “Okay. Will, Buffy, Dawn, Anya, um- Tara, and-“

“Rupert.”

“Rupert?”

“The Watcher.”

“Is that what Willow called him?” Harris asks, but he seems to accept Spike’s word for it, adding the name to his mantra.

Absolute head case, Spike thinks, observing him. Then he catches himself thinking about Drusilla and hastily stops that train of thought.

“Oi. Want to keep that inside your head.”

“Yeah,” Harris agrees absently, taking a deep breath, then kind of glances at him in defiant embarrassment, as though he keeps forgetting Spike is around to witness him act a fool. “Spike?”

“Yes, Harris.”

“Will you tell me which one Anya is? ‘Cause if I get that wrong I’m totally gonna choke. I mean, I might anyways- oh, man, I’m so gonna choke-”

He smirks. “Don’t think I’ll have to, pet. Now move.”

Harris has barely crossed the threshold of the house before the Niblet comes bounding down the stairs practically brimming with enthusiasm, throwing her skinny arms around his neck at the sight of him.

“Oh, my god! Xander! It is really you!”

“Um, hi,” Harris manages, wide-eyed and sheepish. “You’re- Dawn?”

“Oh, right,” Dawn says, calming a little at the reminder. “Sorry. Forgot you didn’t know us. I’m Buffy’s sister. Wow, it is so freaky being older than you.”

“It’s freaky for me too,” Harris agrees solemnly, which makes Dawn giggle, eyes crinkling as she looks up to Spike.

“God, this is so beyond weird. Hi, Spike. Isn’t Xander the cutest?”

“Not answering that one,” Spike warns, as Harris blushes, pushing through to the living room. “Well, this is cozy.”

“Hello, Spike,” Rupert says, evenly, sounding faintly exasperated already, as the witches wave and Buffy glowers. Spike throws himself down into the corner chair and spreads as obnoxiously as he can.

“Xander,” Dawn is saying, tugging him by the wrist, “This is Giles, and that’s Tara, and you know Buffy and Willow, and that’s Anya.”

“Hi,” Harris says, rocking back on his heels a little as Anya moves over to him, frowning.

“Hello, Xander. I’m your girlfriend, Anya. I’m sorry if my avoidance of you has caused you insecurity. It’s just that I’m not very attracted to children and I don’t want to have sex with you like this.”

“Oh, great,” the Slayer groans, as the room erupts into outbursts. “Bleach for my ears.”

“Anya! You can’t talk to him about- ew, ew, ick!”

“Anyanka, perhaps if you might refrain from commenting about your hypothetical sexual relations with a child, for future reference. Especially when there are two children in the room.”

Harris, having turned a charming puce, opens and shuts his mouth, then takes a steadying breath.

“What’s sex?”

Blank silence falls. The Watcher removes his glasses.

“Well,” Anyanka begins, to immediate interruption. “At its basest form-“

“No, no, no, no! Block your ears!”

“How old are you again, Xander?”

“We might postpone this particular line of questioning until-“

“I’m joking,” Harris interjects, nervy smile threatening to emerge as the others quiet. Spike promptly bursts into startled laughter, flinging his head back as everyone else gapes.

“Xander! Why would you do that to us?”

“I’m _twelve_ ,” Harris says, a little reproachfully. “We had sex-ed at the start of the grade. And anyways before that Jesse-“

“Yes, yes, thank you, Xander, I’m sure the American education system did its due diligence,” Rupert interrupts, as Spike continues to snicker. “Shall we get on topic?”

“No, please,” Dawn begs, practically beaming as she dodges her sister’s blow. “This is way more fun than the usual research stuff.”

“Be that as it may, the research stuff is what will return Xander to his actual age,” Rupert says, dryly, and fixes his glasses. “Buffy, if you will?”

“Right,” the Slayer says, crossing her arms over her tight-fitted t-shirt. “I’ve taken care of all but one of the Thingies, because Giles said we needed it alive for interrogation since the spell seems to be some kind of super secret Thingy thing.”

“God bless the American education system,” Spike echoes, to Rupert, who tries to look like he doesn’t agree. The Slayer glares daggers in his direction.

“The point being, we now need to catch that last guy to get answers out of him,” Red interjects, steering them safely onto track. “Tara and I can whip up a location spell easy, but we’d need something of his to hold onto, and we don’t have anything like that, unless we manage to get some kind of trace off Xander.”

“So, research,” Buffy concludes, sighing. “I’ll go grab the books.”

“I’m going for a smoke,” Spike says, and sees himself out.

He’s burned through two by the time the porch door slides open and Joyce appears by his side.

“Evenin’.”

“Hello, Spike,” Joyce says, folding gently to sit by him. “How has parenting been treating you?”

Spike casts her a look, isn’t surprised to find her smiling.

“Wouldn’t go so far as that.”

When she just quirks a brow at him, he exhales a mouthful of smoke, face tilted away from her. “Don’t like kids. Never been partial to them.”

“They’re quite partial to you,” Joyce replies, mildly, ignoring his expression. “Well, Dawn certainly is. And Xander too, it would appear.”

“Can’t wait until he’s back to himself so he can try to stake me for it,” Spike snorts, perhaps a tad morosely. It’s a pain in his arse, having to pull this whole babysitting schtick and then inevitably get harangued by Harris as if he orchestrated it all to humiliate him.

“He hasn’t changed much, has he?” Joyce asks, diplomatically, sounding amused as she glances back inside. “The poor boy does always seem to get struck by the most unfortunate curses.”

“Course he does,” Spike retorts, tapping his cigarette against his knee restlessly. “Stumbling around like a giant lumbering target while the rest of us do the dirty work. ’S like an appetiser.”

Joyce sighs a little, brow knitting. “If I had it my way not one of you would be putting yourselves into harm’s way like you do.”

Spike very scrupulously ignores his inclusion in this group, takes a drag of his cigarette. “Yeah, well. Slayer’s lot in life.”

They sit in companionable silence, then Joyce shifts, gives him a serious look.

“Has he spoken about his parents?”

“No,” Spike grunts, half-heartedly warning. Harris’ home-life is low on his list of things to discuss.

Joyce looks understanding, sighs a little. “I don’t mean to- I just worry. Especially when he’s like this.”

“They never set foot downstairs,” Spike says, in concession. “He’ll be back to himself before they notice.”

This only makes Joyce’s expression tighten, shaking her head minutely. “Sometimes I think if I’d just left Hank sooner I could have looked out for these kids when it still meant something.”

Mutely, Spike passes her the cigarette. It makes her laugh, at least.

The porch door slides open; Joyce displays some impressive reflexes in discarding the cigarette before Dawn bounds outside.

“Spike, Buffy says- oh, hey mom.”

“Hi, baby.”

“Spike, Buffy says to tell you they’re done and you can go now.”

“Just me, huh?” Spike asks, as Dawn makes big innocent eyes at him, nodding.

“Yeah, ‘cause Xander’s sleeping over.”

“Is that so?” Joyce asks, smiling. “Your sister agreed?”

“Uh huh,” Dawn says, and then rapidly continues: “Anyways, you’re the mom, so you get to say, right?”

“I’m glad you appeal to my authority.”

Dawn sags, lip jutting out in a pout. “Please? Please? I finally have someone my age around who knows about magic and vampires and stuff! It’s like my only opportunity for a sleepover at our house, ever!”

“No can do, Niblet,” Spike says quickly, at the suddenly stricken look on Joyce’s face. “Can’t have your mum stuck alone with the two of you running amok here.”

The girl’s face contorts, stuck between petulance and crushingly resigned disappointment; Spike is speaking again before he can remind himself that he is a blood-thirsty demon.

“Besides, who’m _I_ supposed to hang out with if Harris is here, huh?”

Dawn gives him a wobbly smile, strengthening when Joyce nods gravely.

“You gonna be lonely if he’s over here?”

“Soul-crushingly,” Spike agrees.

“You don’t have a soul,” Dawn reproaches, but she’s half-way to giggling. Spike weathers the very warm look he receives from her mother.

From inside, the dulcet tones of the Slayer: “ _Dawn!_ ”

“We’re _coming!_ ”

Inside, he finds Harris cooped up next to Buffy on the couch leg bouncing, looking tired despite the restless energy emanating from him in waves.

“So, verdict?” Spike inquires, eyeing the witches.

“We think we have a trace,” Red explains, pointing to scattered notes. “We’ll need to assemble some ingredients, but I’m thinking by tomorrow night we should be good to find our, uh-“

“Te’hre’Wesite,” Rupert supplies. She nods with relief.

“Right. Him. And once we get him, Buffy can bring him in stat.”

They say their goodbyes, Harris stumbling over books as he goes; Spike stalls by the Slayer as she grasps his wrist, frowning studiously.

“You’re walking back?”

“His car,” Spike shrugs, covering for the fact he’s so used to Harris refusing to let him within a mile of his keys that he hadn’t even considered the option. Buffy looks conflicted, then lets him go with a warning look.

“Get him home safe.”

Harris walks close enough to Spike to bump into him at regular intervals. They’re barely off the porch before he’s looking inquisitively at him.

“How come you stayed outside the whole time?”

“Don’t do the research thing,” Spike supplies, surveying the street. “Or not the stuffy tome version of it, ‘least.”

“It’s like school but worse,” Harris agrees, vindicated. “I mean, I thought the monster stuff was cool at first, but it’s so much reading, and written all weird and old-timey and _super_ tiny, and it takes _so_ long. How come these Council guys never update any of their books anyways? Can’t they just write comics or something instead of scrolls? Or make them like Lego instructions?”

“They actually made you do research?”

“Not long,” Harris concedes, gratefully. “Me and Dawn just hung out in the kitchen mostly.”

“Lucky you,” Spike says. Harris nods his heartfelt agreement.

“Yeah. It’s actually sorta-“

“Hm?”

“Um,” Harris flounders, then scuffs his feet. “Just- everybody is so cool. And nice.”

“I can promise you they’re not,” Spike scoffs, replaying every flailing embarrassment he’s witnessed on their part. Harris only shakes his head.

“You’re a vampire. I super don’t trust your promises. Plus you told me to call Mr. Giles Rupert earlier and he was really weirded out.”

Spike struggles to contain a smirk, which Harris must catch given the proud way he grins.

Monday morning Spike wakes to the sound of clattering in the kitchen, which turns out to be because Harris has been standing on a chair trying to reach a serving tray.

“I’m okay!” Harris promises, hastily, straightening the chair and jumping to his feet before stilling and glancing upwards.

No one stirs upstairs. Harris’s shoulders relax; he places two bowls and two mugs on the tray, walks back over to the couch.

“What’s this?” Spike demands, as Harris manoeuvres himself onto the couch and sets the tray down beside him.

“Breakfast,” Harris announces, passing him a bowl and a mug. “It’s cereal, except yours has blood in it. And I made too much hot milk, so.”

Spike stares at him in bewilderment, hot milk in one hand and bloody cereal in the other. Harris just curls up against the arm of the chair and ups the volume of the television, crunching obnoxiously.

Spike eats the cereal. Jury’s out on the hot milk.

Phone starts ringing off the hook at nine, at which point Spike abruptly remembers that he usually makes the most of the week because Harris is at work.

“Do I answer?” Harris asks, wide-eyed. Spike’s instinctive urge to get him fired from every job he holds deflates.

Just self-preservation, he tells himself. If Harris gets fired everywhere he’ll be home moping all the time. Not to mention he’ll be even harder to convince to buy any decent beer.

“Tell them you’re Harris’ little cousin and you have a family emergency. Someone’s in hospital and he’s watching you.”

“O-kay,” Harris says, uncertainly, then picks up. “Um, hello?”

Someone says something demanding from the other side of the line; Harris tugs at the phone cord. “No, this is- Alex.”

More talking. Harris juts his lip. “He’s watching me ‘cause my mom’s in hospital. She fell yesterday and she hit her head real bad. Xander said she’s just resting but the doctors said she was um, cotamose.”

His voice has gone all whinging, and Spike can just imagine some Pizza Hut manager squirming on the other side. Harris nods gravely at whatever spiel he’s getting.

“Um, we’re going to my house to get some of my stuff right now. Xander says I’m sleeping over for a bit.”

Excuses are made. Harris makes understanding noises.

  
“Yeah, I will. Okay. Thanks. Bye.”

He puts down the phone, bounds back over to the couch with a nervous grin.

“She said for me to call when things settled down, but that I could take my leave days.”

Spike takes a moment out of dryly applauding to wonder how he could incorporate the inherent manipulative powers of children into future schemes.

“Never took you for a proficient liar, Harris.”

“I’m usually the one who has to call when we bunk,” Harris explains, looking pleased with himself. “”Cause Willow doesn’t wanna get in trouble and no one believes Jesse.”

Around a mouthful of cereal, as Spike curses himself for forgetting to chase down the witch about this Jesse asshole, Harris continues: “Also, how come you call me Harris?”

“Reckon that’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Harris draws out, like he’s explaining something simple, “But you call everyone else weird nicknames. And I don’t call you- whatever, I call you Spike.”

“How’d you know you normally call me Spike?”

“Cause I’ve been doing it the whole time and you don’t act like it’s weird,” Harris says, looking pleased with his logic. Spike inclines his head.

“So what’m I supposed to call you, then?”

“I dunno,” Harris says, consideringly. “Xander, I guess. How come I don’t get a nickname, anyways?”

“Harris is a nickname.”

“No, it’s not, it’s my last name. You even call Mr. Giles Ripper and Watcher and stuff.”

“So what fitting nickname d’you expect I should give you?” Spike snarks. “You’re not a witch or a watcher or a Slayer.”

“You call Dawn other names,” Harris protests, though this is followed by rapid face-pulling. “Even if it’s all weird eating stuff.”

“Almost sound jealous,” Spike needles half-heartedly, too busy mulling over this apparent oversight. It’s true, though- Harris is probably the only person in his life he calls by his actual name all the time. Dru and Peaches have their own array of replacements, as do all of the Slayerettes. It feels almost wrong now he’s been made aware of it.

“I’m not jealous, I just think it’s lame!”

Spike very nearly says ‘ _you’re_ lame’ as a scathing retort. This much is typical Harris, at least- always somehow managing to dumb Spike down to his level. Instead, he attempts deflection.

“When you’re back to yourself you can get back to me on the nickname situation.”

Harris scrunches his nose but settles down, scoring Spike a verbal victory over the twelve year old.

He hates Sunnydale.

By lunchtime Harris has called all three of his current places of work to repeat the same sob story about his injured aunt and sudden responsibilities, adding flourishes as he goes. He gets gloomy after the last call, though, staring off into space with a knitted brow. Spike lets him stew for a good while before concluding that this Harris appreciates his intervention more than his silence.

“Oi. Primadonna. What’s eating you?”

“Uh, nothing,” Harris replies, startled and subsequently confused. ‘Wait, unless it’s you. Is this a vampire riddle?”

“No, it’s an expression. Means summat you’re worrying about.”

“Oh,” Harris says, and squirms. “Well. It’s kinda dumb.”

“Usually is,” Spike agrees, gentling his tone so it sounds less like he means it. Normal Harris would never fall for it, suspicious prick that he is. “So?”

“Just,” Harris starts, glancing uncertainly upwards. “Sorta thought I’d be doing cooler stuff than cooking pizzas by now. And not living down here, I guess.”

Oh, for the love of everything unholy. Harris’ rotating set of thankless minimum wage jobs are one of Spike’s only remaining sources of happiness, for the haze of dead-end misery they instil around the wanker. He feels an abrupt surge of spite, expression twisting, considers the ease with which he could break the gormless idiot’s spirit if he just dug the knife in a little.

Harris is still looking at him with his damned saucer eyes; Spike deflates, self-loathing rearing its head as his face settles. Weak, weak, to sad little girls and boys looking for someone to hold them through the nightmares.

“S’ hard to keep a regular job when you’re out fighting demons every night.”

Harris frowns, letting this roll around his empty skull, then his expression clears, acknowledging Spike’s point.

“Oh. Guess that’s true.”

He’s not quite guilelessly content again, though, so Spike goes for a second round of remedies.

“Besides, none of the other tossers can even manage to hold one down.”

“Yeah,” Harris says, managing a convincing smile, like his next question is thoughtlessly casual. “But they’re all in college, right?”

Damn the boy; Spike had honestly thought he was oblivious to the pathetic life his older self leads. Clearly he’s been stewing covertly, despite his poor lying abilities.

“Listen,” he hears himself say, leaning intently across the table. “Received a proper education myself, years ago. Complete waste of time. You’re making yourself some money, saving up for a place with Anyanka- got your priorities right, I say.”

This, finally, gets through to Harris, who smiles distractedly this time, nodding in thought before giving Spike a curious look.

“How come you call her Anyanka? Everyone else says Anya.”

“Anyanka’s her name,” Spike shrugs, leaning back into his chair and patting himself on the back for a successful distraction. “Anya’s what she calls herself now she’s playing human.”

“Like a demon name?” Harris asks, eyes gleaming with sci-fi geek interest. “What’s yours?”

Spike is unable to stop himself from snorting sardonically. “Can’t figure that one out for yourself?”

“What?” Harris asks, confused, and then pauses, thinks, flushes. “Oh. Right. Spike’s your demon name.”

“You know many humans called Spike?” Spike pushes, lips quirking. Harris goes a deeper shade of pink, fleeing his gaze.

“Well, no, obviously, but- since you’re a vampire- I dunno, I just-“

Spike could well have sat and tormented him further a while, only he looks up at him with sudden interest, forgetting his own embarrassment in the face of pressing questions.

“Wait, so what’s your human name?”

“None of your business, that’s what,” Spike retorts, automatic. Harris, typically oblivious to danger in the face of blind enthusiasm, is not dissuaded.

“Oh, come on, please? Please? I won’t tell anyone, I promise! I super-promise!”

The worst thing is that Spike believes him; it’s primarily future Harris that keeps him from conceding. 

“ _No_ , Harris. Don’t push your luck.”

“But-“

Spike snaps his fangs at him; this time around, with the element of surprise on his side, Harris does startle, losing his precarious perch on his chair and tumbling to the floor.

He pulls himself upright rapidly, sending Spike a slightly nervous look before staring indiscreetly at the ceiling. Superb- another topic Spike has been trying to avoid broaching. He casts around for a distraction.

“You have a pack of cards, you reckon?”

“Uh, probably?” Harris says, looking towards the pile of untouched boardgames stacked in a corner of the room. “How come?”

“Show you how to play poker,” Spike shrugs, rolling his neck. “Useful life skill ’n all that.”

Harris looks surprised then eager, scrambling to his feet with enthusiasm. “Oh, man. Jesse’s gonna be so jealous.”

Bloody _Jesse_ , Spike thinks, watching him dig through the boxes. Red better have paid her phone bills.

Harris is, unsurprisingly, a terrible poker player. No mind for strategy, and not a shred of a poker face, or at least not in the face of Spike, who manages to get him squirming simply by staring at him dead-on for more than s second. He seems accustomed to being terrible at things, though, and so quite happy to lose all afternoon as Spike attempts to improve his game somewhat, if a little depressingly pleased that Spike keeps his nasty remarks to himself.

“I really suck at maths stuff,” Harris explains, around the fifth game, somewhere between dismissive and apologetic. “Sorry.”

“What’re you apologising for?” Spike returns, genuinely non-plussed, which makes Harris look confused and then babble awkwardly to himself, seeming unsure of the answer himself.

By late afternoon Harris is marginally improved, and Spike’s let him win one or two hands in a way that Harris clearly recognises but does not protest. It’s overall not a terrible time; Spike’s not known for his patience, but he’s done this sort of thing for Dru so often it lulls him into tolerance.

They’ve played several hours by then, and Harris’ blatant ADHD tendencies have been manifesting themselves in an increasing inability to sit still or concentrate on his cards, so Spike calls an end to it, to apparent reluctance on Harris’ end.

“’S about time for dinner anyways,” Spike argues, which sets Harris’ stomach off. “Might be a big night, if the Slayer’s managed to find that last bloke.”

Harris sets to rifling through cabinets, digging up a meagre and thoroughly over-processed array of options as he goes; Spike twitches, thinks it through, resigns himself to the idea. If he’s going to have to share his meals with Harris every night with no hope of takeout he’s taking things into his own hands.

“Stay put. ‘M gonna go grab some things from the store.”

Harris looks up to the darkening skies, gnaws his lip uncertainly. “Is that gonna be-“

“I’ll be fifteen minutes,” Spike reassures, in final tones, throwing on his duster. He will be- theft goes much faster than purchase.

“Okay,” Harris says, leg bouncing rapidly as he attempts to look convinced. “Um, Spike- you’re- you’re coming back, right?”

Kid should weaponise the kicked dog look. Spike represses a deep sigh, nods coolly.

“Where else would I go?”

Infuriatingly, the unwarranted sense of urgency gets to him as he makes his way to the store and back; he walks faster than strictly necessary, has to force himself to slow down when he catches himself doing it. Trying to justify it as a concern that he’ll return to find Harris gutted in his absence doesn’t really stick, especially once he slouches casually back into the basement and feels himself relax at the way Harris’ head immediately pops up from the sofa with naked relief painted all over his face.

“Told you I’d be quick,” Spike says, mentally banging his head against a wall. Sodding Harris. Sodding Scoobies. Sodding Initiative. Sodding Drusilla. Sodding Angel. Sodding Sunnydale.

“Willow called,” Harris informs him, clambering over the couch to hover nearby. “I said you were in the shower.”

“Yeah? What’s she say?”

“Um, they think they know where the Thingy is. She said they’ll probably be able to fix the spell by tomorrow.”

“That right?” Spike asks, watching the water boil.

Well, well. Miracles do happen. He’ll chalk his apathy up to his lack of faith in any Scooby’s estimated timeframe.

“You’re cooking?” Harris asks, curiously. “What are you cooking?”

“Just pasta,” Spike handwaves. If Harris proper is to return tomorrow it’s especially crucial that he downplay this. “Couldn’t stand to eat more stale soup.”

“I didn’t even know vampires ate human food,” Harris notes, peering at the pasta as he retrieves spoons. “This looks fancy.”

“Most don’t,” Spike agrees, and flashes him a fangy smile. “I’m just special like that.”

Harris drops the spoons, clattering against the floor, and Spike quirks a brow as he scrambles to pick them up, glancing ceiling-wards as he does so. He’s gone pink-eared for some reason.

Still no questions about his folks, though. Not that Spike was looking forward to them, but it’s odd that he doesn’t ask at all. If Spike had been in his shoes-

“You like your food spicy?”

Despite protests, Spike sends Harris to bed at a reasonable hour this time around, claiming necessity in the face of potential transformation the next day. Harris, although argumentative, is far more obedient than anyone else Spike has recently bossed around, and so by eleven has fallen into an uneasy slumber, spread-eagled across his too-large mattress and drooling into his pillow.

Spike casts him a careful glance and then retrieves the phone.

Luckily, Red’s number is saved into the device, and she’s most likely got the boy on speed dial, because she picks up on the third ring.

“Xander?”

“Not quite,” Spike smirks, and gets ahead of the predictable line of questioning pre-emptively. “He’s fine, he’s asleep. Who’s Jesse?”

“Spike,” Red says, sounding harangued, but she evidently knows him well enough to reconsider arguing, sighing with such abrupt exhaustion that he imagines someone with a soul might have dropped the subject entirely. “Look, this- Xander wouldn’t want you to-“

“ _Xander_ brings him up every five minutes. Just spit it out or I’ll ask him.”

There is rustling, the faint sound of voices, and then the witch inhales, audibly composes herself.

“Jesse is- Jesse was our best friend. I mean- maybe more Xander’s than mine, ‘cause they were both guys, but- we were inseparable from middle school. He- when Buffy came to town, Darla took him and tried to give him to the Master. Buffy helped us save him, but-“

She pauses, breathes shakily. “The Aurelian vamps took him back, and- turned him. We couldn’t reach him, in the end Xander- Xander staked him.”

Despite himself, he can feel his eyebrows climb.

“Doesn’t sound like Harris.”

“I don’t think he- meant to,” Red says unsteadily. “He never- we never really had the time to- afterwards.”

“Right,” Spike says, and then curses himself for not just hanging up on her. What the hell is he supposed to say?

Miraculously, Red soldiers on, taking a sharp breath and getting the wobbliness under control.   
  
“Well, now you know. I hope you’re happy you asked. And if you tell Xander a single word-“

“”M not Angelus,” Spike protests, with little heat. “Time and place.”

He can’t quite muster up outrage, as Willow makes her excuses and hangs up. Checks out, that Harris hates vampires- kind of reasonable of him, considering. Spike’s big on grudges himself.

Very privately, as he stands outside smoking, he allows himself to be relieved he never even laid eyes on Jesse.

Lest Spike be fooled into thinking he might get to sleep through at least one morning undisturbed, he awakens the next morning to loud rapping at the door and the sound of Harris falling out of bed.

“I’m coming in,” Anyanka announces, matter-of-factly, and makes her way rapidly downwards as Spike pulls himself upright and glowers at her.

“Couldn’t have called ahead?”

“My boyfriend lives here,” Anyanka replies, uncomprehending. “Hello, Xander.”

“Uh,” Harris sputters, from the floor. “Uh, hi, Anya. Why, um-“

“Buffy has caught the Te’hre’Wesite,” Anyanka says, peering curiously at him. “Since we ought to have the reversal spell ready by tonight I thought I should stop by before you return to your usual form to show that I love you no matter your body.”

Harris goes beet-root, ducking his head and stammering a reply as Spike rolls his eyes back into his skull. Humans and demons. What a mix.

“Well, that’s lovely, Anyanka. And what, exactly, do you count on doing while you’re here? ‘Cause I’m not going anywhere, and Harris is barely pubescent.”

“I didn’t come here for sex,” Anyanka reproaches, turning sincerely towards Harris. “We get along fine without sex, too. You buy me nice things sometimes, even though you have very little money. And you are funny.”

“Thanks,” Harris manages to sputter, finally getting to his feet. “Um, you- do you want coffee or something?”

“No thank you,” Anyanka says, primly. “Your coffee machine does not function correctly since Spike threw it at the wall in a fit of rage.”

“Oh,” Harris says, looking at Spike as if surprised by this. “Um. Tea?”

“Tea is adequate,” Anyanka decides. “I will make it while you get dressed so you can feel more at ease.”

“Are you sure?” Harris asks, all startled gratitude. “I mean- thanks, really. If you don’t mind.”

“I do not mind.”

He rushes off to the bathroom, clothes in hand, as the ex-demon drifts to the kitchen, wrinkling her nose at the faded mugs before giving Spike a look when she spots the pans.

“You cooked.”

Spike rolls his shoulders uncomfortably. Their whole demonic understanding schtick backfires when her interest in Harris’ well-being drives her thought process.

“Slayer’d have my balls if he got malnutrition under my watch.”

“You eat human food?”

“When the urge strikes.”

“I like chocolate a lot,” Anyanka declares seriously, nodding her understanding. “I do not like Twinkies. Except in the bedroom.”

“Keep it to yourself,” Spike winces, amused nonetheless.

She just nods at the reminder, then returns to watching the kettle. Spike considers her with vague curiosity. Demons turning into humans- ’s a lot like Angelus with his bleedin’ soul. Even used to be a person before she was a demon, all very vampire-like. Not so much with the existential angst, though. He figures they’d get along if she didn’t have such tragic taste in men.

Honestly. Leaving the demon lifestyle behind for _Xander Harris_. At least Spike has a chip in his head to keep him here.

Speak of the devil: Harris emerges from the bathroom in his mismatched outfit, cargo shorts with one of the shirts Anyanka got for him. It’s a sufficiently desperate attempt to please her that Spike feels an unwarranted spike of empathy for him.

“So, um,” Harris says, shoving his pyjamas under a pillow and attempting to rapidly make his bed. “How have you been?”

“Not great,” Anyanka replies, eyeing the teabags. “Too much research, and I have to do it for free because it’s for you.”

“Oh,” Harris says, looking somewhere between hurt and sorry. “I don’t mind paying. I just don’t know if I have money.”

“No, no,” Anya dismisses, shaking her head. “It would make me a bad girlfriend to seek payment for it. And it’s in my interests for you to be back to normal, anyways.”

“Right.”

“Otherwise, I have not been doing much,” Anyanka continues, and turns to face Harris with curious sincerity. “I miss you.”

Harris’ flush returns. “Sorry. I’m sure I’d miss you too, if, uh. I knew who you were.”

_Smooth_ , Spike mouths at him. Harris groans silently.

“I am also sure you would,” Anyanka agrees. “Here. The tea is finished. I’m not sure how you drink it because I have never seen you drink tea before.”

The last bit is said with a meaningful look towards Spike, who scowls. So what if he likes to flavour his blood once in a while? They’re only feeding him _animal_.

“It’s good,” Harris declares, hurriedly taking a sip and burning his tongue in the process. “Ten out of ten tea. Very drinkable. Great boiling.”

“You are very similar now to your usual self,” Anyanka observes. Harris smiles weakly.

Anyanka only stays for about half an hour, during which Spike enjoys making himself as much of a nuisance as possible and Harris operates in back-to-back sequences of anxious awe and enthusiastic familiarity. To her credit, the ex-demon is on best behaviour too, clearly making an effort to keep things appropriate and not hurt any feelings; she manages it for the most part. They’re just not an especially talkative couple, or at least not talkative in the sense of managing small talk in the circumstances.

“I will see you once you return to form,” Anyanka greets, solemnly, as Harris nods his acknowledgment. “I am glad that you still have feelings for me in this younger body. And that you have not attempted to cheat on me despite your amnesia. I would have been very upset otherwise.”

Harris stares up at her in stunned amazement as she bows to kiss him very chastely. Spike clears his throat just to be annoying, landing him a sharp look.

“I suppose I should say thank you for not encouraging any of his juvenile feelings,” Anyanka says, consideringly, as Spike frowns in confusion. “But if you had I would have probably destroyed your genitals.”

“Wait, feelings?” Spike asks, non-plussed, as she flounces upwards, only slightly distracted by her very nice legs and the threat to his prick. “What’s she on about?”

Harris, who has been making broken-down machine noises since the kiss, stares up at him in cloudy wonder. “Huh?”

He allows himself a deep sigh, since Harris Prime isn’t around to mock it.

“Nothing, whelp. Let’s get back to the poker.”

Red and Glinda stop by as promised just before dinner, flushed with success and bearing tomes and herbs aplenty. Spike stands and smokes out of the doorframe as they chatter and recount the day’s work- Slayer slaying, what else is new- and the reversal spell obtained from the demon.

“We think we’ve worked the translation out,” Red explains, dripping wax into a bowl, “So we put together the ingredients as fast as we could.”

“Well, not as fast as we could,” Glinda mumbles quietly, earning herself a rapid laugh from the other witch and smiling timidly in return.

“Well, no, we didn’t _rush it_ \- we checked there was no crazy combo of ingredients that would spell you any worse, first. But after that we came straight over!”

“Thanks,” Harris says, wrinkling his nose. “I wouldn’t wanna be turned into some kind of goo monster ‘cause you accidentally threw some expired eye of newt in it or anything.”

“I heard Anya stopped by this morning,” Red says, rifling through her spell book. “How was she? Spike still behaving?”

“She was nice,” Harris says, and hesitates, lowering his voice in a way that probably would have quelled Spike’s passive eavesdropping were it not for the whole vampire thing. “She’s kind of intense.”

Red laughs not entirely kindly. “That’s what you get for dating ex-demons!”  
  
“Spike’s teaching me poker, too.”

“He is?” Red asks, audibly staring upwards. “Um- are there kittens involved, by any chance?”

“Nope,” Harris says, slowly. “Regular poker. Why would there be kittens?”

“Vampire thing,” Glinda offers helpfully. Harris hums in apparent acceptance.

“Well,” Red says, somewhere between doubtful and hopeful. “That’s very nice of Spike. As long as you’re not playing for money or anything.”

“I don’t really have any money,” Harris says, prodding a dead frog curiously. “Spike said it was okay if I just let him drink from me.”

Spike just about manages to recover from his shock before he is murdered where he sits by two seething witches, hands raised with martyr-like innocence as he boggles.

“I bloody well did not!”

“ _Really_ ,” Red says, eyes gone ominously and inexplicably shadowed. “Did he now?”

“Um, no,” Harris says, eyes laughing in Spike’s direction even as he grins guiltily. “That was a joke. Sorry.”

“You-” Spike starts, somewhat admiringly, Harris’ smile broadening as the tension in the room deflates to nil. “Little wanker.”

“Spike! Language!” Red reproaches, all wholesomeness once more. Spike gives her a flat look, earning a nose scrunch as she turns back to face Harris. “Naughty Xander. No vampire jokes around the vamp.”

“I’m afraid I can’t promise that,” Harris declares theatrically, in a garbled and frankly offensive attempt at Transylvanian dialect that makes Spike snort solely because he can imagine Dracula’s face if he were subjected to listening. Tara stifles a giggle of her own in the face of her girlfriend’s wannabe sternness.

“If you’d pulled that in front of the Slayer she’d have staked me in a heartbeat, mate. No more false accusations or I’ll have your head.”

“Chip,” Harris replies, tapping his forehead, though he does look adequately abashed now. It occurs to Spike that he has no real reason to suspect the levels of antagonism that exist between the lot of them.

He makes himself scarce during the whole spelling business, skirting back upwards to smoke. So sue him, he’s leery of witchcraft. Never done him any favours.

His vampiric super-hearing, of course, happens to carry up the noises of their conversation, three sets of voices mingling and laughter ringing like bells every couple of seconds. Nice treat for Red, he reckons, having her good old pal back in fighting form.

It’s not that he feels for them, but he’s resigned to the burst of discomfort he feels listening to their laughter. Even despite the usual annoying comic relief it’s nearly the first time he’s heard any of them sound so straightforwardly happy.

In fairness, Spike-the-demon points out, he’s not usually trying to instil any good humour in the Scoobies.

Christ, Spike-the-vampire thinks. When did he start disconnecting himself from the demon again?

He’s just about gnawing his way through an umpteenth smoke when the low redundant hum of voices signalling spell-casting cuts off abruptly, and then there is silence, and Glinda whispering something.

“Oh, nuts,” Red exclaims, disappointment heavy in her voice. “Stupid demony translations.”

Spike deduces that there will be no reversal tonight.

Red and her girl stay longer, of course, still trying to find some loophole around the fact whatever irrelevant tome they dug up to elaborate on the Te’hre’Wesite’s confession butchered a word or two. It gets them nowhere. By the time Spike decides to spare everyone more awkwardness and waltz downstairs, the sun has firmly vanished from the horizon and the Harrises are banging around upstairs.

Glinda watches him descend with an inquisitive, skittish look, Red still muttering to herself and Harris fidgeting between them. Spike makes his footsteps loud to catch their attention, leans with his arms crossed against the wall.

“Call it a night.”

Red doesn’t try to argue, in a surprising turn of events, just sets her little pink mouth and then forcibly exhales, softening with guilty reassurance as she squeezes mini-Harris’ knee, terse determination seeping out of her posture.

“I’m sorry, Xan. We’re really close, but there’s something missing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harris says quickly, sitting upright. “Not your fault demons speak bad English. I’m a native human and I got a D on our pop quiz last week.”

This makes sense; Spike always suspected Harris was illiterate.

“We’ll be back tomorrow,” the witch promises, as her girlfriend begins quietly packing their tools away. It’s said with the cheery assurance of one who has broken many a promise in her day, but Harris doesn’t seem to recognise the lie, or maybe trusts her too much to expect it.

They’re quick in tidying up, despite how much vaguely magical-looking clutter has taken over the basement floor; for once Harris doesn’t try to keep Red from leaving, only cracking jokes to keep the girls smiling as they pack.

“I’ll call before we come by,” Red says, bags in hand and sweet eyes heavy as she surveys Spike. Her hand hovers before landing on his arm for no reason, quick as a butterfly kiss, an unexpected burst of warmth. “Night, Spike.”

“Night,” Spike echoes, thoughtlessly, catching the tail-end of a timid smile from Glinda as she hovers obediently outside. He returns it only a little predatorily.

He expects Harris to be raring for another late movie night, or full of babble about how _cool_ it is that Willow is a _witch_ , steels himself for the stern paternalistic act once he gets downstairs. Lately he’s felt himself channeling the Watcher when he’s play-acting at a responsible guardian.

He’s partially correct; the first thing out of Harris’ mouth once the door closes is: “Can we do something now?”

“Whatever you choose we’re watching for an hour tops,” Spike says, eyeing the clock. Take that, Peaches, he can do the negotiation thing.

Harris, though, doesn’t take the bait.

“I don’t want to watch a movie, I meant like- patrol.”

Spike’s head swivels; Harris’ expression has gone shifty in a way that makes him tense anticipatorily.

“What’re you on about?”

“Normally you guys patrol every night, right?” Harris pushes on, tone still wannabe casual despite the increasingly recognisable stubbornness in his eyes. “I bet there’s a bunch of extra fledges around since you and me have been stuck here all week.”

He’s got the lingo down. Spike sneers.

“Not happening, half-pint.”

“You said we were out fighting demons overnight, and Dawn said I always go on patrols,” Harris says, fists clenching nervously. Confrontational only when pushed, Harris is. Shame for him Spike’s never lost a battle where unnecessary antagonism is concerned.

“That right? Niblet also mention she never does, on account of her being a helpless child and whatnot?”

“She’d go if Buffy or Mrs Summers let her,” Harris counters, flushing unhappily. “Plus I don’t need parental authorisation.”

“Oh, big words,” Spike croons, mocking. “And how far out the door d’you reckon you’ll make it before I drag you back inside?”

Betrayed brown eyes, trying for combative. “You can’t hurt me.”

“Don’t need to hurt you to keep you nice and tucked in your bed until morning,” Spike counters, sharp-toothed. Harris’ jaw locks unhappily, gaze finally falling away as his shoulders tighten.

He lets the kid stew in it for a moment, observing him intently lest the tears start falling and wholly prepared to let him cry a while before he’s forced to play good samaritan, but apparently Harris wasn’t so much the crying type even as a kid, or at least not in the habit of bawling over daily frustrations in front of his reluctant demonic babysitters. His cheeks flush and his mouth twitches, and then he visibly swallows back a cocktail of emotions and calms, blowing air out of his nose like a snuffling pup.

It’s entertaining to watch, sure. Spike cuts the show short, circling Harris so he can’t avoid his gaze.

This Harris has not perfected the art of ignoring Spike’s bait; he cracks quickly, spinning to try and catch his gaze as he stalks around him.

“It’s just- everyone else is off doing all this fighting and researching and stuff to turn me back to normal and me and you are just sat in the basement doing nothing, and it’s like- I wanna be helping.”

Scoobies and their saintly helpfulness. Spike gags internally.

“You’re barely in the double digits, Harris, you’re going to get eaten if you set foot in a graveyard. Just enjoy the week off. Your normal self’ll be happy to have avoided the bruises.”

“But normally,” Harris says, looking at him with such half-disguised earnestness that Spike feels suddenly uncomfortable. “I help, right?”

“You suffering from memory loss, now?” Spike manages, curling his lip. “Told you you were out patrolling every night with the rest of us. And you won Anyanka over to your side, for whatever that’s worth.”

Harris’ expression wavers, then something seems to occur to him and he goes tentatively confident.

“And you stay with me so the creepy scientists don’t dissect you.”

Spike pauses, thumbs his lighter.

“There is that.”

He could swear Harris’ thoroughly unremarkable eyes sparkle with the realisation. Distraction successful, Spike thinks distantly. He needs a drink.

“So. Movie?”

“Okay,” Harris agrees, easily, and rocks back on his heels, smile curling at the corners. “Can you do your vampire face again?”

Spike sleeps in on Wednesday, or more aptly Harris lets him sleep in, watching television with the sound off until Spike rouses enough to sense his heartbeat thumping merrily away nearby. He still gets breakfast, though, with terribly brewed tea this time.

“Have you ever touched a bloody kettle before?” Spike manages, viciously, thumping his chest. Harris cringes guiltily at his watery scowl, but when Spike gets more theatrical in his coughing his expression goes defensively unimpressed with the instinct of one used to his friends playing up their grievances around him.

“Dude, it’s totally not that bad.”

“This tastes like sodding rat poison!”

“You’re a vampire! I bet you like rat poison.”

“Oh, real class act,” Spike grouses, baring his fangs as he pushes the cup as far away from him as he can. “Stick to the microwave next time.”

“Fine,” Harris grumbles. “Make your own hot leaf water.”

“ _Americans_.”

Harris pulls a face and kicks him in the side with one socked foot, with so little force it’s barely a nudge. Spike yanks said foot upwards in one swift movement, Harris gone sprawling on the couch with a surprised yelp, smirks at his sputtering. The chip twinges, but barely; he’d been careful with his precious little ankle.

“Not cool, man!”

“Keep your foot to yourself,” Spike replies, smugly, squeezing his ankle before he lets him go. Harris tumbles back into position like a new-born foal, all teenaged ego in the offended jut of his lip. His eyes are dancing, though; enjoys a bit of friendly ribbing, Harris does.

Even adult Harris is almost always willing to engage, though their ribbing is entirely unfriendly. Not that Spike appreciates Harris’ knife-sharp banter, considering his idea of wit is the cliché-laden repartee of godawful American action flicks.

“I thought your chip hurt you when you hurt people.”

“When’d I hurt you?” Spike inquires, tugging at the captured foot. “This hurt?”

“Well, getting thrown-“

“Onto the couch?” Spike pushes, smirking. “Bloody uncomfortable couch, but even your hard head’s not cracking on some pillows.”

“Ugh,” Harris says, gravely. “You are such a bully.”

“You think?” Spike asks, pleased, releasing him with a light shove that sends Harris sprawling back in a pile of gangly limbs. “Very kind of you to say.”

“You’re so weird,” Harris protests, voice muffled by the worn couch pillows, but he sounds kind of happy about it. It’s gratifying.

Spike scarfs down his cereal and pointedly throws out the tea, contemplating their options for the day; Harris is dressed already, which makes him think he hasn’t shaken off the previous evening’s fit of stir-craziness, but there’s not much for them to do other than sit around and play cards or watch TV. It’s not like he can bloody well take him to an arcade or whatever people do with normal teenaged boys, even as diurnal as he’s been forced to become the past few days- doesn’t make him any more sunlight resistant.

Poker will kill some time, he supposes. Still new enough to Harris that he can distract him with some neat cheating strategies. He’s not got an especially wide array of child-friendly expertise, though the Niblet doesn’t seem to mind- but then he can at least lend an ear to her woes. Harris doesn’t know him.

He doesn’t have to think about it long, though, because knocking comes at the door just as Spike is pondering whether or not he should get around to cleaning the mounting pile of semi-dirty dishes. Harris gives him a startled look; Spike nods upwards.

It’s the Niblet, appearing as if sent, escorted by her sister by the smell of it. Spike can hear the excitement practically radiate out of her voice the moment Harris opens the door.

“Hi! Xander!”

“Hey- what’s the sitch?“

“So,” Dawn rushes, in the business-like tone she uses when she’s in negotiation-mode, “My sports teacher is off sick so I don’t have fourth period today, which means I finish now, and Buffy said we could totally go lunch at the mall and then you and me could like hang out at the mall for a bit with my friends and stuff if you wanted to.”

Harris, of course, is immediately taken by the proposal, but his eyes flicker to Spike in an absurd search for parental authorisation that makes Spike feel painfully his age.

“Well, if the Slayer thinks it’s safe, I certainly have no objections,” Spike drawls, slouching against the wall to make sure his voice carries. It makes Buffy’s head appear from the doorframe to cast him a dour look.

“It’s different now we’re rid of the Thingys. And I owed Dawnie a mall trip.”

“And what an effort it is for you too.”

“Don’t be bitter or we won’t bring you anything back,” the Slayer responds, usual antagonism evidently curbed by her mall-related euphoria. “Or better- I’ll let Dawn bring you that change of clothes she keeps threatening.”

“Okay, I’m not threatening anything,” the Niblet interjects, waving her hands as Spike casts her a stung look. “I just thought it’d be nice for you to have a couple of other things to wear after that whole laundry fiasco.”

Spike instinctively glares at Harris, because of course the rat bastard shared that particular tidbit, but of course this Harris only balks at the look so rapidly that Spike immediately curbs the glare, feeling nebulously guilty for wasting a good glower on an innocent.

“Appreciate the sentiment, pet, but ‘m quite content with my current wardrobe. Buy Harris a new closet- maybe if we burn all of his shirts while he’s like this we can force him into a new style when he gets back.”

“Hey! What’s wrong with my shirts?”

In a strangely gratifying moment of solidarity, Harris is subjected to three similarly judgmental looks from all parties.

“Right,” the Slayer says, flipping her hair over her (delectably bare) shoulder. “That’s settled, then. Spike, I’ll drop Xander off around three or four.”

“Or maybe you could drop us both off and we could hang out with Spike until dinner,” her sister suggests rapidly, faux-casual. Harris lights up further at the suggestion.

“Oh, cool, yeah, Spike can watch us for a bit.”

“You’re really springing this on me out of nowhere?” the Slayer demands, brow raised but eyes twinkling. “Nuh huh. It’s a school day.”

“Buffy, c’mon, please? Xander totally wants to too! And Spike too, right, Spike?”

“Whatever you say, Niblet.”

“Get in the car,” the Slayer orders, in mock-stern tones. The children exchange conspiratorial grins before flouncing off as Buffy snorts and shakes her head, following without a look back as the door closes behind them.

Well, Spike thinks, into the silence. Finally alone.

He spends the next three hours uniquely bored, listening to the creaking pipes for entertainment, the occasional heavy footfall of Harris senior as he lumbers from what Spike can only assume is the couch to the fridge and back.

He has no idea what the actual Harris household looks like, which is not something he cares about but does intrigue him in the moments where he has nothing better to think about. He can’t imagine the ever-charming Mrs Harris keeps her house like Joyce does.

He’s so tired of this basement. He’s a bloody vampire- he’s lived in empty warehouses and crypts and all manner of grimy gloomy misery, but he feels as though he’s never set foot in more oppressive a space than Harris’ place. It’s because he’s never usually so trapped- those Initiative bastards’ fault, making him spend his days and a good portion of his nights cooped up in suburban squalor with the king of losers. At least the Watcher keeps a nice place- at least Rupert is _intelligent company_. Spike would have preferred the bathtub.

It’s solidly Harris’ fault, too, that Spike has such a shit time of it. The witches would have been decent company by now; even Buffy herself would have channeled her frustrations into something entertaining. Harris functions only on the most low-level, obnoxious brand of dumb spite, and he’s not even always willing to engage in annoying back and forth, just exists as a perennially human cloud of poorly-disguised bitterness.

Current Harris is ‘not so much’ with the resigned bitterness, as the man-child himself would say. Annoying nonetheless, of course. But differently. And less, if Spike’s being honest.

He growls to himself, forces a change of direction in his thoughts. He’s not Spike the Bloody, friend to the children- it’s just that the two he happens to be forced to interact with as of right now are comparatively less insufferable than the other idiots he’s stuck with.

He’s just about managed to get himself day-dreaming about the good old days with Dru, running rampage and feasting on fresh entrails, when his fantasies are cut short by the door wrenching open and youthful giggling forcing its way into his bloody visions.

“Honey, I’m home,” Harris calls in a put-upon sitcom voice, eerily similar his adult self’s sarcastic greeting but less joyless. Dawn dissolves into thrilled giggles.

“Buffy says to say sorry and she tried but we were merciless tyrants and also her and Willow are on some Initiative thing and she’ll be back before dinner,” the Niblet recites, when Spike turns to raise a brow at them. She’s brandishing two large shopping bags and wearing a new top, looking flushed with excitement in a way Spike doesn’t often see her.

“The mall is totally awesome” Harris adds, looking similarly excitable as he follows after her. “It’s huge now, and there’s like a whole video game store-“

Spike holds up his hands; gratifyingly, they both quieten.

“You two sure the Slayer knows you’re here?”

Intense nodding.

“Right. Proceed.”

“-and Buffy let me get Xander a couple of cool shirts, and we got you guys some movies, too-“

“-got this really sick figurine set-“

Spike lets the mangled sound of Californian chatter wash over him and nods as appropriate until they run out of breath.

They get around to showing off their purchases eventually; Spike charitably approves of Dawn’s clothing choices and less charitably approves of their movie choices, then needles Harris about his action figures. They’ve at least settled down by this point, cramming into the couch to commence viewing of whatever schlock the Niblet has talked Harris into buying as Spike complains.

Besides the obvious, this is why he doesn’t spend time with the Niblet one on one, Spike thinks, watching them out of the corner of his eye. Too bloody easy to pretend like they have some kind of domestic set-up where he wouldn’t drain her dry if the chip wasn’t firmly planted in his skull.

He wouldn’t, nowadays. Even the demon doesn’t pretend otherwise. But he’s allowed to be selective in his victims- doesn’t mean he’s gone soft. He’d drain the rest of them.

“I wish you could just stay like this,” the Bit announces at some point, voice still laugh-breathy as she tucks her knees under her. “You could go to school with me and you wouldn’t have to do all the boring research work anymore.”

“Homework blows too,” Harris says, grimacing. Dawn laughs and shakes her head.

“Well, fine, I’d do it for you. Or Spike could help us.”

“Spike would damn well not.”

“Not even history?” Harris protests, turning to look at him imploringly. “You’re like five hundred years old, right? You probably _knew_ George Washington!”

“He’s not _that_ old,” the Niblet says, loyally. “He’s from Victorian England.”

Harris scrunches up his face. “Isn’t that when we got independence?”

“ _Xander_ ,” the Niblet giggles, as Spike groans.

“What? What’d I say?”

“Hopeless,” Spike tells the Bit, sternly. She’s far too easily entertained by Harris, which is one of the few faults Spike can assign her. Usually he doesn’t pay it any mind, considering Harris’ buttoned-up Presbyterian mores would never let him engage with his friend’s kid sister, but now they’re practically same aged he feels like a chaperone.

“This day has been the best,” Dawn sighs, smile fading a little as she considers her colourful nails. “Sunnydale’s never this fun.”

“You have friends at school, don’t you?”

Her pretty little face twists moodily. “Well, yeah, but no one I can actually bring home or talk to about stuff.”

“Guess it’s kinda hard to make introductions,” Harris muses, looking at Spike. “Meet my friendly basement vampire…”

“Cool it with the friendly.”

“I wish,” the Niblet huffs, giving Spike a wistful look. “If you weren’t a vampire you could come pick me up at school and all my friends would think you’re supremely lunchable.”

“Very tempting,” Spike smirks, touched though he is by the sentiment. “Eternal life and supernatural powers or the privilege of driving Harris’ piece of junk to Sunnydale High and back every weekday.”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

“Dad gave me his car?” Harris interrupts, wide-eyed with excitement. Niblet erupts into laughter.

The Slayer comes to pick her sister before dinner, unmoved by Dawn’s attempted wheedling. The Bit takes defeat gracefully, though, shrugging her backpack on with no complaints as the Slayer jingles her keys meaningfully.

“You guys played nice?” Buffy asks, to Harris, who gives her a very Harris-to-Summers grin, all cheesy friendly admiration.

“Super nice. The nicest.”

“Okay, I’m ready,” the Niblet announces, spinning on her heel to give Harris a rapid hug, warm with spontaneity and slightly awkward in a way Spike can sort of remember from adolescence if he focuses very hard.

“Thanks for hanging out, Xander.”

Harris’ responding smile goes goofy, but he doesn’t do anything particularly mortifying, just pinks in the cheeks as she lets him go. Spike doesn’t get long to smirk at him; out of the blue the Niblet is giving him a funny look and then springing up to hug him too, quick and slightly devastating.

“Bye, Spike.”

She’s flouncing upwards before he can react, hair bouncing behind her as she goes, and Spike meets the Slayer’s eye with something akin to honest bewilderment. His skin crawls with it for a moment, phantom warmth like an itch against his bloodless body.

He doesn’t know what shows on his face, but he knows it’s too much, because Buffy’s expression does something complicated, hazel eyes looking into him like she can see the shrivelled remnants of a long dead poet-wannabe where they’re stuffed somewhere deep down.

He curls his lip automatically, fang flashing, and she rallies, shutters. Only polite to revert to form. The illusion’s not perfect, though; she looks more thoughtful than hateful as she nods at him, echoing her sister in more than youthful American prettiness.

“Bye, Spike.”

Raging bitch, Spike thinks, bitter.

He picks up on the thread hours later, Harris gone pyjama clad and munching on one of those disgusting pastries of his. If Spike cared he might’ve been concerned about the state of his teeth.

Harris is rambling some dumb nonsense about god knows what when Spike turns to face him, having tuned out of this particular verbal vomit about ten tangents prior.

“..like, woah, super not with the weirdness on that-“

“You fancy the Niblet?”

Harris’ expression slackens dumbly. “Huh?”

“Niblet,” Spike repeats, savouring it. “Fancy. Do you?”

“Oh, right, Dawn?” Harris asks, squinting. “What’s fancy about her?”

The War of Independence was a mistake, Spike thinks, rolling his eyes hard.

“You sweet on her?”

“Sweet?” Harris repeats, then flushes violently, realisation hitting. Harris senior’s not so much with the blushing; Spike thinks they’d get along better if he had the gratification of seeing blood rise whenever he got under his skin. “I’m not- she’s- I have a girlfriend!”

“ _You_ don’t,” Spike needles, enjoying the way he squirms. Harris looks at him with betrayed embarrassment.

“It’s not like that!”

“Young love’s nothing to be ashamed of, Harris.”

“Stop it,” Harris groans, throwing a wrapper at him, ears scarlet. “I don’t _like_ Dawn, she’s just- really nice.”

“That so?”

“ _C’mon_ , seriously, I- she’s like Willow.”

“You not sweet on the witch, then?”

“No,” Harris pronounces, with great conviction. “She’s my best friend.”

Implicit code of friendship, then: the eleven year olds of Sunnydale do not _like_ their best friends. Spike would mock, but then he’s never had a best friend, so who’s he to argue?

“Probably for the best,” is all he says, mildly. “Considering how the witch swings.”

Harris looks blank, maybe luckily. Spike’s not sure how he’d handle the concept of wiccan lesbianism, but he is sure he doesn’t want to be dealing with the female contingent of the Scoobies in the aftermath.

Harris’ blank expression shifts suddenly into curiosity. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

He can’t quite stop himself from snorting, amused by the incongruity of the question despite the stupid pang that he feels at it. “Why you want to know?”

Harris shrugs, unashamed. “I don’t know. I thought maybe you and Buffy broke up or something.”

Spike almost chokes on air, which is doubly embarrassing in that he doesn’t bloody well breathe. “You _what?_ ”

“Or maybe you guys like each other,” Harris pushes, somehow seeming encouraged by the fact Spike is near stunned silent in outrage. “Like, Cordy’s always really annoyed at Jesse but he says it’s like when little kids pull pigtails.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Spike demands, fully turned around to glower at the affront. “‘M not _pulling the damn Slayer’s pigtails_.”

“Yeah, but you’re all, _Slayer_ ,” Harris says, approximating broody flirtation, “and she’s all, _Spike_ -“

Spike snaps his fangs at him, definitely not because he can just picture her saying it like that, which at least gets Harris to lose the mischievous bravado before Spike bites his head off.

“Watch your mouth. I already have a woman and it’s sure as hell not her.”

“So you do have a girlfriend!” Harris exclaims, somehow managing to non-verbally broadcast to Spike that he’s just shot a few echelons higher on whatever meter of coolness fetus-Harris measures the world by.

He hesitates on an answer for a heartbeat (or approximation thereof), but he’s easily plied by appeals to his coolness, and by opportunities to talk about Drusilla around people who won’t instantly begin mouthing off about how _evil_ and _psycho_ she is, Harris the elder being tied for worst offender with the Slayer on that point.

“Name’s Dru,” Spike says, thus, and shifts, trying to decide on how to emote. Now that he has the chance to speak on it he feels a little raw on the subject. In Angelus and Darla’s eyes his is a laughable puppy love for a broken toy; in the Scoobies and their ilk’s it’s some sort of weird facsimile of affection, maybe a sick obsession. He’s only ever gushed or deplored in the face of victims-to-be.

“Dru?” Harris repeats, helpfully cutting through Spike’s annoying bout of philosophising with tentative curiosity. “I don’t think I know about her.”

“Well, Drusilla to you,” Spike corrects, sitting back thoughtfully in his chair. “She’s a vampire too. Matter of fact, she sired me.”

“Sired?”

Of course. “Means she turned me into a vampire.”

“Oh,” Harris says, and then frowns, perplexed more than shocked. “Aren’t you kind of mad at her about it?”

“Course not,” Spike scoffs. “Being a vampire’s a fair deal better than being a walking blood bag.”

“I guess you’re much stronger,” Harris agrees, with the wisdom of a child who has spent many a recess debating superhero stats with his friends. “And you live super long. Only going out at night seems kinda annoying, though.”

“Night’s when the fun happens,” Spike intones authoritatively, which is true- he misses nights of revelry with Dru far more than he misses the sunlight, though in his basement days he will privately concede to staring perhaps longingly at the rays filtering in whenever Harris et cie storm in and out from the door. “You’ll see when you’re older.”

“What’d’you miss, then?” Harris asks, squirming around to stare at him properly. “Garlic? Not sleeping in coffins? Drinking stuff that isn’t blood? Or- I guess you do eat and drink, though.”

“Not often,” Spike admits, moving on before Harris can wonder why they’ve been having a healthy three a day schedule since the moment he de-aged. “I dunno. Haven’t thought about it. S’pose maybe…”

He trails off, thinks it through. Harris is asking genuinely; might as well. And maybe it’s the thought of his siring, or maybe it’s all the time he’s spent with children of late, but his mind jumps immediately to some long-forgotten memories of his younger days, morning walks through the parks with his mother, listening raptly to her reciting poetry. The demon bristles; Spike twitches.

“S’pose maybe I do miss the sunlight.”

He’s schooled his features into casual impassiveness by the time their gazes lock, but Harris gnaws on his lip for a second anyways, giving an uncertain smile when Spike quirks a brow.

“Sorry. Guess that’s kind of sad for you to talk about.”

“‘M a big bad vampire, Harris, I’ll survive.”

Harris’ smile turns goofier. “So, Drusilla.”

“What about her?”

“What’s she like?”

“You mean what’s she look like?”

“Well, I just sort of figured she was- pretty, ‘cause you’re-“ Harris starts, then makes a sort of waving motion, gone a bit stammery. “-you know, and stuff.”

Spike does not know, and stuff, but he senses he’s better off not knowing. “She is. Beautiful. ’S got long dark hair, eyes like crystal. Never seen anything like her.”

Harris looks charmed; Spike shifts so he doesn’t have to look at his audience, rubs his knuckles absently over his arm.

“Cleverest creature you ever met. Proper dark lady. An’ she’s got something pure to her that nothing’s ever managed to break.”

“She sounds really nice,” Harris says, almost shyly.

For some reason this gets to him- he misses Drusilla like something physical, ache bone-deep. Centuries he’s been turned- centuries he’s been hers, and rarely has he spent so long without her, stewing in some small town nightmare while the love of his unlife is singing her twisted siren’s song somewhere across the globe. There was a time he’d never have let her go so far.

He thinks of- Drusilla, and Angelus, and Angel, and vampires, and walks with his mother. Blasted Harris, with his moronic mortal questions. Drusilla’d take great pleasure in picking the boy apart, soft spot by soft spot, web of insecurities that he is; bleed him dry and leave him to rot, or maybe string the torment out for days, weeks, months if she took a liking to him, which he imagines she might. Likes being entertained, Dru does, and likes funny pets.

“She can be,” Spike says, and feels like he’s lying. “Think she’d enjoy you.”

“Oh,” Harris says, smile blossoming with ready acceptance. “Vampires are awesome.”

Coming from Harris, Spike thinks, this is as true a test of the week he’s had as any.

He doesn’t get any gratuitous extra sleep that night; his thoughts are scattered and conflicted in ways they haven’t been in decades, and he tosses and turns annoyingly in his stupid chair for hours before he gives up and goes to smoke in Harris’ yard. The temptation to get out- go kill some monsters, stretch his legs, pass by Clem’s- is strong, but his stir-craziness doesn’t quite outweigh his desire not to have all of his bones broken and his food supply reduced to guinea pig for the foreseeable future once he inevitably runs across the Slayer patrol by a simple twist of misfortune.

He falls asleep at some hour of the early morning, moon gone round and bright in the sky, but only a couple of hours can have passed by the time he wakes up to banging and the sound of someone scurrying nearby, reflexes kicking in so he’s vamped out before he’s even fully conscious.

The room is deathly quiet to a human ear, but he registers the too-fast breathing too close, snaps his head around to find Harris perched on the arm of the chair nearest to him, foot jiggling a mile a minute and eyes fixed guiltily on Spike’s.

He smells like fear, Spike thinks, a frisson of awareness running through him, and he finds himself at odds about it, one part satisfaction and one part something else. The demon growls through him, lowly, and counterintuitively Harris’ pulse slows a little, expression no less guilty as he opens and shuts his mouth, licking his lips nervously.

Not scared of him, Spike realises. Abruptly he is ten times more awake, expecting any variety of demon or soldier to come springing from the early morning shadows, but the basement is empty.

He looks back to Harris, vamp-face fading with as his irritation rises- if he’s been awoken because the brat had some kind of night terror, he swears- but before he can so much as demand an explanation the banging that had first awoken him resumes, crashing noises making the shitty pipes rattle above them as muffled swearing makes its way through the floor.

“It’s the last Thursday of the month,” Harris says, tight-voiced and quiet, foot stilling with obvious effort. “He gets- he got his pay-check last night.”

Funnily, there is something hard-edged and defensive to him now, the Harris brand of obstinate boorishness that has been conspicuously absent all week re-emerging inexplicably in his determinedly neutral expression, like he’s daring Spike to press the issue.

Sometimes, very absently, Spike has wondered about it a little. He’s been around enough human scum to recognise the type of man Harris senior is, and though he doesn’t frankly care if the man likes to throw Harris around once in a while (who wouldn’t), he has wondered what brand of parental disregard Harris is or was subject to, exactly, and just how much the others know about it. Red is the obvious candidate for being in the know, but he can’t imagine her ever standing by idly if Harris was being knocked about by his old man, so he’d assumed the worst of it was a bit of yelling. Could still well be, given how melodramatically modern children respond to the littlest bit of punishment, but could also be that Harris simply exercised some uncommon discretion and Red never caught on. Based on the way he’s staring Spike down, stubborn denial seems likely- and Harris does so love to make poorly-timed ‘jokes’ about his various ailments.

“Big night, then,” Spike says aloud, very neutrally, as the ceiling rattles. He’s heard the man have these fits before- at fairly regular intervals, now that he thinks of it- but through his own nocturnal schedule and how little Harris strives to be at home, he’s never been around Harris when they happen, or at least not a conscious, communicative Harris.

“They don’t pay him enough,” Harris mutters, almost loyally. “And he works all the time. It’s his one night off.”

This is both untrue and a poor excuse; Spike says nothing, neither kind enough to give Harris an out nor currently cruel enough to dig his fangs in. The banging resumes, Harris’ mother’s voice joining in now to cuss her husband out, and then the elusive front door slams, car starting with a rattle as dust filters downwards from the shaken ceiling.

Spike had always taken Harris Squared for a poor liar, but he thinks maybe he just hadn’t cared enough to notice how comfortable of a liar he is where the mundane crises of his everyday life are concerned. He only notices it now because Harris junior lacks even this ability- he can’t imagine how Red was ever fooled, looking at the way his every muscle relaxes the moment the car has sputtered out of earshot.

“Where’s he off to, then?” Spike inquires, curious as to what kind of platitude he’s about to be hit with. This one Harris is clearly used to, though; his jaw barely twitches as he settles into the sofa like he’d only been there for television purposes to begin with.

“Union stuff, probably. Might stop by the shops too.”

Bar all day, and possible alcohol stock-up on the way back, Spike guesses. But Harris is practiced enough that he can’t needle too much without outright confrontation, and Spike’s not in the mood for it.

It’s very early, still. He can tell by how pale the sunlight is. And Harris is in stasis, hand on the remote, clearly trying to figure out a way to pretend like this is an acceptable time to start watching Trek tapes as if nothing’s amiss.

“Skip the one where Spock gets all happy,” Spike sighs, slouching back into his chair. “’N no tea or I’ll have your head.”

It’s for his own sake, really. No way he’ll catch any more shut-eye with Harris fidgeting around for the next two hours.

Lunch rolls around; Harris shuffles over to get dressed as Spike hits the showers. Not much use for it, considering he’s been sat politely inside all week with no grime or grit to it, but he’s got some standards, and more importantly he refuses the indignity of sinking to the level of his usual roommate by reeking of sweat and small-town suffering all bloody day.

Harris fields a call from the demon bint of all people, caught between try-hard jokiness and off-guard stammering, and Spike considers the filthy sink and half-heartedly scrubs a dish or two if only to stop himself from laughing loudly enough for Anyanka to hear him through the phone.

“Apparently Willow was in some kind of magic trance thing yesterday and her and Mr. Giles have a proper translation of the whole spell now,” Harris informs Spike over lunch, chewing open-mouthed like an animal. “Anya says they have most of the stuff ready.”

“Shut your gob when you’re eating,” Spike replies, sniffing. The food’s not half bad, compared to the bland garbage he’s been forcing down the last few days- Niblet’s offering from the mall trip- but watching the kid masticate is killing his appetite.

“Sorry,” Harris manages, swallowing, though there’s a sort of implied _mom_ to it that Spike glowers at. “Will said- the other day, Willow said she thinks I’m probably me, but transformed, right? ‘Cause first Mr Giles was worried I was from my normal life, and we got switched, so if we switched back there would be- butterfly effect stuff, like in the City on the Edge of Forever, and I guess maybe everything would go crazy. Will said it’s happened before ‘cause Cordy deleted Buffy or something.”

“Wouldn’t know,” Spike shrugs. “Red saw it happen, she’s probably right. And your clothes were too big, ‘f I recall- reckon that means you are jut downsized.”

“Yeah,” Harris says, and pokes at his food. “It’s kinda freaky to think about. Like- I feel like me, but I’m not, I guess? So- when he comes back, it’s just me coming back, but it sorta feels like I’m gonna be disappearing.”

Spike, thoroughly familiar in the intricacies of multiple selves inhabiting one body, makes a very disinterested noise and shamelessly changes the subject.

“Up for some poker?”

“Oh, uh, I guess,” Harris says, distractedly obliging. “Hey, Spike, do you think I’ll remember how to play poker once I’m back to normal?”

Like a dog after a bone. Spike sighs through his nose.

“Maybe. Dunno. Not sure if you can play normally.”

“It’d be kinda cool if I did,” Harris suggests, thinking it through. “Hey, you should totally have taught me all kind of cool stuff this week so when I came back I just levelled up a bunch of random skills. Like knife-throwing.”

“Knife-throwing.”

“You can’t throw knives?”

He bravely resists the impulse to procure a knife and do some kind of trick with it.

“Prefer a hands-on approach.”

“Kinda less showy,” Harris considers, and damn him- Spike does not care if Harris, who thinks ‘cool’ is a matter of cliché-spewing Canadian spaceship captains, is lowering his pedestal, but he has a _reputation_ , and it rankles. In the second that he stands to stretch Spike’s gently kicked the legs out under him and flipped him easily over his head into the sofa, so smoothly he barely has to brace for the screaming headache as Harris makes a startled noise, flailing for purchase.

“Wh-“ Harris starts, as Spike unclenches his jaw, rubbing at his temples and aiming for unruffled. “What just happened?”

“Hands-on approach,” Spike repeats, leaning coolly onto the arm of the sofa to peer down at him. Harris’s eyes are bright with shocked exhilaration, hair a mess from his post-flip scrambling, and when their gazes lock he goes a violent red for no discernible reason, most likely embarrassed at how effortlessly Spike pulled one over his head.

“Whuh?”

Spike raises his hands, wiggles his fingers. Is it possible to get brain damage from lightly knocking into pillow cushions? Not with Harris’ hard skull; the brain damage is all pre-existing.

“R-right. Right. Hands-on! Not really hands, mostly feet and- vampire superstrength, even though- oh, I guess this is like the other day with the not hurting.”

“Little rougher this time,” Spike concedes. Harris goes a deeper red and then shoots upwards, grinning nervously as he fights to sit up.

“Well! Not so much. Not hurt anywhere. Just, uh, my ego I guess. Aren’t you hurt at all? I’m kinda worried about the chip working now.”

“Just a twinge,” Spike says, storing the knowledge somewhere for a rainy day. “Wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“Yeah,” Harris mutters, eyes flitting around Spike’s face with unspecified aim as his wobbly smile turns to rambling consideration. “We should have done combat training instead of poker, ‘cause I bet I could have pulled some sick moves by now if we had.”

Spike considers him, then considers the dusty floor, then considers the threat of the boy’s existential dread resurfacing across the day if they stick to poker.

He’s never really taught anyone to fight. Not much of a need, for vampires, and he’s never felt the urge to train a human out of the goodness of his unbeating heart- the Slayer certainly needs no lessons, and he derives special glee out of watching Harris concuss himself by tripping over headstones.

Still. How hard can it be to teach someone to duck when yelled at? It’d certainly save Spike some effort if Harris could do more than stumble when threats emerge.

“Right, then,” Spike decides, getting to his feet. “Clear the furniture.”

“Huh? The- wait, really? Wait-”

“Chop chop, Harris.”

Promisingly, Harris only trips himself twice pushing his couch out of harm’s way.

The sun’s set by the time Spike calls an end to it, both because he’s starting to get hungry and because he thinks if he pushes any more he’s going to get jumped by the Slayerettes. It’s not that he even laid a finger on the kid; his hypothetical masochism does not extend to electrocuting himself sparring with a twelve-year old. It’s just that Harris is a walking disaster, and Spike isn’t sure how he survived to his current age without impaling himself on a soft surface somehow.

Harris’ not so bad at flailing; he’s almost respectably good at detecting danger. Reacting to said danger is where he loses any chance of survival.

“How did you even come of age in Sunnydale?” Spike deplores, at some point, almost marvelling at him. In fairness, it is a thought he has often where Harris is concerned.

Harris only shrugs sheepishly, dusting himself off and clambering back to his feet. “Usually I’m not fighting vampires.”

The thing is, nowadays, usually Harris is. And he’s a magnet for trouble, too- demon magnet, Slayer says, which is correct; even Spike’s always felt something weird about his aura, though _he_ has the self-control not to mind it. So his continuous survival, even considering the friends he keeps, borders on inexplicable. Spike’d be inclined to think he had some kind of luck charm going on if he wasn’t privy to the pathetic innings of his life.

He’s hard to keep down, though, Spike will give him that much. Not that it’s inspiring, considering how much he bitches and moans about it- even young Harris, who is still excited by fighting monsters and seems to be trying for best behaviour around him, starts complaining after the first ten knockdowns. But he keeps at it through the melodrama, and that’s in keeping with Harris in any form. So maybe that’s the secret: Harris just wears ‘em down.

He doesn’t actually touch Harris, during, or at least not if he can help it; just feints around him, sees how he reacts. By the end of it there is actually a faint improvement in his reflexes; less spastic jerking around and more automatic dodging. It makes Spike wonder why no one ever took the time to sign him up for a karate class or something, considering how much patrol time is spent babysitting him.

“I think I’m broken,” Harris announces, when Spike calls time, sprawled sweaty and boneless on the filthy carpet. “I can’t get up. I’ll just sleep here and maybe cry a little.”

“Don’t be a ninny,” Spike retorts, stepping over him to get to the fridge, blood beading down his fingers as he nicks a bag open. He sucks on it as Harris moans and stirs feebly, making a show of raising his head before dropping it back down.

“Nope. No. Niet. Super duper not moving. Can’t do it.”

Spike pours himself a mugful, stands there drinking it and staring judgmentally at Harris, who remains staunchly prone on the floor.

No skin off his back; Spike’s not so fooled by his antics. He downs the last of the blood- god, so much better than the usual foul shit- wipes his mouth, steps back over Harris and shucks his duster, boots flying as he sprawls onto the bed.

“Hey!” Harris exclaims, alarmed. “What- what are you doing?”

“Since you’re taking the floor, figured I’d make myself comfortable.”

“What, _now_?”

“Early night,” Spike shrugs, smirk doubtlessly audible. “Need to get my beauty sleep in, don’t I?”

“Spike!”

Harris’ bed really is a fair deal more comfortable than the chair. Shame the real Harris is a tosser; he’s not getting to sleep anywhere but the chair as long as he’s under his roof, no matter what he threatens. If he pushes his luck he’s getting stuck in the bathtub.

There is the sound of scuffling, then thumping. Harris releases a piteous groan.

“Okay, I really can’t feel my legs.”

“Sleeping,” Spike replies cheerily, stretching his back. Harris groans.

“Aw, c’mon, you’re the one who did this to me.”

“If you weren’t so friendly with the floor, you wouldn’t be so sore. You can stand to be friendly a little longer.”

“I was only on the floor all the time ‘cause you kept putting me there!”

“Did not. I didn’t lay a finger on you.”

“That’s super not the point! You’re a vampire, you don’t need to beat me up to beat me up- you probably have, like, evil vampire hypnosis powers you use before you eat people!”

“Don’t have any of those,” Spike says, thinking of Drusilla. “Just natural charisma.”

Harris goes silent at that, probably struggling to find a good comeback that doesn’t challenge his tragically fragile masculinity. Spike shimmies into a more comfortable position.

Beds really are a net positive. He’s not especially fussy about his menial needs, unlike some pretentious poofters he won’t name, but the fact he can sleep on rock slabs doesn’t mean he enjoys it. Dru’s the one completely impervious to the outside world.

There is shuffling, then hissing, then more shuffling. Spike waits for the next round of complaints.

It never comes: the next thing he knows, the bedding is being yanked out from under him with such vehemence he actually slides with it, taken by complete surprise as he swears and drags himself upwards.

“What in the fuck-“

“Haha,” Harris says, triumphantly, still slumped on the floor but now by the foot of the bed. “Take that.”

When Spike moves to look down at him he has to stifle an honest laugh; Harris flat on his back half-covered in the sheets he pulled off looks like an overexerted pup that’s gotten its way into the laundry.

“That’ll win you a fight.”

“Right?” Harris agrees, one eye sparkling tiredly at him through the linen. “Move over, Buffy. New Slayer in town.”

Spike really tries not to look amused, but he suspects he’s failed at impressing upon his charge that he is a vicious hunter that puts fear into the hearts of the meanest of demons; Harris’ visible eye just crinkles. Twat.

To save face, he pushes the last of the bedsheets over Harris’ head, then throws himself back down onto the bed as he sputters.

“Jokes’ on you, ‘m used to sleeping cold.”

“Oh, yeah,” Harris manages, fighting to get his head out of the pile. “How’s that work? Do you still feel temperature? You don’t have blood, right? So I guess you can’t be warm, but-“

Whatever brilliant follow-up was to come never does, because there is loud tire-screeching from above, then the sounds of a door slamming and a heavy weight stomping all the way up to the basement door, Spike bolting upright at the ruckus.

“Open the fucking door! I know y’re in there!”

Harris, very redundantly, has gone as pale as- well, point is the colour’s left him. He gives Spike a look that makes Spike actually wish he could pretend not to be witnessing this heartwarming familial reunion.

Instead, he nods upwards, keeps his tone unmoved.

“You lock that door?”

Harris nods stonily, voice forcibly above a whisper. “Buffy said to.”

Slayer’ll have meant it to keep out creepy crawlies, but then- tomato tom _a_ to. Spike relaxes a fraction. In the state he’s in he doubts the man will be breaking down any doors, or managing to force a lock. As long as they stay quiet he’ll lose interest sooner or later, and no matter the slander of certain hypocrites, Spike’s a pro at the waiting game.

“ _Alexander_ ,” other Harris bellows, with a thump that makes the stairs shake. “Know you can hear me, boy- been havin’ all your little friends in and out ’t every hour- my fucking house-”

The pounding is rhythmic, and Harris doesn’t quite flinch at it, just sits there staring at his clenched fists with his shoulders rising incrementally the longer he avoids looking at Spike.

“Y’re late on rent,” Harris’ father is saying now, years of alcoholism clearly leaving him sharp enough to change strategies despite the boorish act as he rattles the doorknob. “Your damn mother’s losing’ sleep over it-“

Fucking chip. He thinks on shock value alone he might have a shot of giving the bastard a heart attack before he realises he’s functionally harmless- _neutered_ , Harris’ voice singsongs- but even then, there’d be questions and consequences and all the attention neither he nor Harris can afford to have focused on them. Good old Sunnydale.

The humiliation of having to sit pretty for the likes of Harris senior, he will admit, is a particularly unpleasant one.

There is a long minute of silence, then one last spiteful bang that finally manages to make Harris jump. Lumbering footfall signals the man’s retreat back into his lair.

“So,” Spike says, considering. “That went well.”

Harris looks like he might yell at him for a second, radiating unhappiness, but instead he shoves himself upright on unsteady legs and dumps his linen back on the bed, head set so that Spike can’t see his face.

This, Spike thinks, is somehow worse than the expected annoyance of watching over a de-aged Harris all week long. There’s no damn way he gets out of this one without the Slayer knocking his teeth in, and that’s despite the fact he’s not even in the mood to mess the kid about. It’s self-preservation for one, and he’s willing to admit that he’s got no real desire to see infant Harris have some kind of breakdown. On balance he doesn’t even particularly enjoy the rare occasions adult Harris goes beyond his usual hissy fits, because as long as they’re stuck together he has to sit with the consequences of his miserable temper, and he prefers a silent Harris to a loud and whiny one. This Harris’ bad moods are just as inescapable, and to make matters worse Spike can’t even say that he’d at least enjoy his suffering like he normally would.

He doesn’t want to push Harris over the edge, but he’s not sure how to get him to retreat from it. So far he’s been relying on Harris’ goldfish-like attention span to focus on whatever distraction he’s improvised, but he can’t imagine Harris easily going for more card games or telly, and he’s hardly in shape for a rematch. Shit.

Before he can come up with anything useful, Harris’ fingers spasm reflexively around the sheet he’s been clenching, letting it slip anticlimactically to the floor; Spike moves to catch it on instinct, and that forces him into Harris’ line of vision.

Harris’ eyes are shiny with something like humiliation, spots of colour high in his cheeks; he speaks before Spike can, snatching the sheet back and making a show of smoothing it out.

“Guess vampires don’t have rough days at work. Not like you guys need to earn money or pay your light bills.”

“‘M familiar with the concept,” Spike says, neutrally. Harris’ jaw clenches before he forces a smile.

“You should have said about rent.”

“Didn’t figure you’d know what rent was, whelp,” Spike replies, though of course he’d just forgotten. He’s not especially torn up by it; he’s fairly certain Harris’ father was just lying.

“Vampires don’t have landlords either?” Harris asks, smile tight. “Talk about a sweet deal. Dad might be interested in joining.”

“Think I’ll pass. Parentage’s enough of a mess as is.”

Wrong thing to say; Harris’ strained cheer vanishes, inexplicable hurt in his gaze. “I didn’t mean it. And I thought vampires didn’t have families.”

“Vampire families,” Spike corrects, sensing a way out. “We call it siring. So Dru sired me, ’n some other poofter sired Dru, and so on.”

“Wait, your girlfriend’s your mom?” Harris asks, looking semi-invested despite himself. Spike scowls.

“No, you twerp. She sired me. ’S not like a real parent.”

“And your real parents?”

Harris immediately looks like he wishes he hadn’t asked, glancing ceilingwards before gnawing absently at the corner of his lip.

Well, Spike thinks, into the ensuing silence. Here’s certainly a distraction.

Just happens to be quite possibly the last thing in the world he ever feels like talking about.

Damned Scoobies. It’s not his bleeding heart that’s making him consider it- it’s the Slayerettes, always cornering a man until their way of doing things seems the only plausible way out. But Harris is in a mood, and he’s already gone and wounded his feelings- if he wants to salvage things this is his best card to play.

The demon roars in incredulous outrage as his eyes return reluctantly to the brown saucers currently avoiding his. Why do children’s eyes always have to take up half of their damn faces?

“My mum was a very nice woman,” Spike says, quieter than he meant, and evens his voice out when Harris’ gaze snaps back to him. “Got along well. It was just me and her all my life.”

Harris looks torn a moment longer, still worrying his lip like he’s not sure if he’s missing something, but curiosity- or maybe habitual empathy, if Spike’s being generous- predictably swings him over.

“Your whole life?”

Spike makes a vague gesture at himself; Harris’ brows lift.

“Oh. I guess you died when you were young, huh.”

“Haven’t aged a day since.”

Harris nods, nudges his sock-clad foot against the bedpost. “She must have missed you after.”

Christ. Spike exhales through his nose.

“Reckon so. Didn’t miss me long.”

“You went and saw her as a vampire?” Harris asks, looking up in surprise, which wasn’t the assumption Spike was expecting him to make. Bugger.

On the other hand: in for a penny… It’s not like Harris-the-younger is going to share.

“Tried to turn her, actually.”

“Oh,” Harris says, and finally sits down heavily beside him, brows drawn with interest. “It didn’t work?”

“No,” Spike says, simply, and then slants Harris a look. “Wasn’t so nice after.”

Harris’ expression tightens the moment their eyes meet, and he seems to be mulling something over, probably whatever completely demented crash-course on vampirism he’s been given across the week.

“‘Cause she- cause she didn’t have her soul, and stuff?”

“Yeah,” Spike answers, slowly, fixing his hands. “‘Spose that’d be why.”

It’s been years since he’s let himself think about the subject, and it rankles, maybe moreso because his own answer catches him off-guard.

_Didn’t have her soul, and stuff_. He’s never quite managed to think of it that way.

“Ubersuck,” Harris mumbles, all shame-faced sincerity. “Sorry I asked.”

“’S all right,” Spike shrugs, unable to muster much anger at a conversation he willingly got himself into. Matter of fact, he feels unusually calm about the topic, Harris’ blatant lack of agenda a sort of lulling effect.

“She was good to me all my life. ’S fair enough I couldn’t manage a second run.”

Harris squirms a little, prior defensiveness turned to a sort of nervous resignation.

“He’s not always that bad.”

“Sure.”

“He’s just- it’s the rent, and- when he’s tired he drinks too much,” Harris gets out rapidly, picking at his nails. “He’s just tired a lot, from work. He doesn’t hit us or anything like that.”

“Right.”

“Everyone’s family is a little messed up,” Harris continues, glancing up for confirmation. “Will’s parents act like she’s not there most of the time. And Jesse’s dad has a secret girlfriend.”

“Parenting’s hard,” Spike agrees. After a beat he adds: “So’s having parents.”

“Yeah,” Harris says, and crumples a little, tugging harder at his sock as his eyes shine alarmingly. “Sometimes.”

If he had evil vampire hypnosis powers, he’d be using them to radiate DO NOT CRY in the kid’s direction. Instead he scrambles for a positive.

“Sometimes not?”

“My dad taught me how to play baseball,” Harris suggests, immediately, like there’s a list somewhere. His voice is a little wobbly. “And, uh, fix an engine.”

“Very useful skill to have.”

“Yeah,” Harris says, easing up slightly on the sock abuse. “And my mom and I watch a lot of TV together and stuff. One time we went to one of those all-day one-ticket movie marathon things and we saw all of the Indiana Jones movies.”

“Think I saw one or two of those,” Spike nods, feeling for all the world like a child whisperer. Probably down to some tendrils of filial tenderness that bloody William still holds onto, somewhere.

Harris gives him an unfairly raw look, the way the Niblet does sometimes, like she’s just overflowing with very real teenaged anguish and Spike alone can bear witness to the injustices of her life. He loathes this look on Dawn just as much as he loathes it on Harris, primarily for his own inability to remain impassive in its face.

Love’s bloody _bitch_. Dru’s conditioned him to care when someone turns that look on him.

“Look,” Spike says, through a haze of self-loathing. “It’ll get better, all right?”

Harris looks at the basement he lives in, the locked door, the rusted pipes, the worn couch. Then he looks right back at Spike.

Point fucking taken.

“I told you, you’re saving up for your own place,” Spike attempts, now sort of regretting that he never bothers to listen to Harris’ unconvincing diatribes about his future plans. “And you hardly spend any time here anyhow, what with the white-knight schedule and the demon girlfriend and all that.”

He’s laying it on thick, but considering Harris’ little impotence meltdown the other day he figures he might as well put his lying abilities to good use. It seems to work, anyways, judging by the way Harris’ uninspired look around fades a little; he glances back around the room, stops on Spike.

“Plus you’re here.”

The absurdity of Harris considering this a net positive almost floors him; he just about manages not to sputter aloud, grounded by the blatant sincerity of the statement.

“So I am.”

And this, somehow, conclusively shuts Harris up, his shoulders relaxing a final fraction as he returns to staring at the ceiling.

They sit there in silence for anything between ten minutes and an hour; Spike drifts off into uncomfortable recollection, and Harris- well, probably does the same. It’s something close to comfortable silence; Spike only even registers how long they’ve been sat there when Harris’ steady slump makes him nearly tip onto Spike’s shoulder, his responsive jerk backwards almost sending him sprawling off the bed before Spike yanks him up by the neck of his shirt.

“Sorry,” Harris wheezes, all teenaged mortification. He’s so red in the face Spike can actually feel the heat of it from his grip on his collar.

“Think you’ll probably be wanting to go to bed, then.”

“Um, yeah, my bad,” Harris manages, clambering backwards onto the bed and spouting a steady stream of nonsense all the while. “Mom says ‘cause I never sit still whenever I have to stay put my brain thinks I’m asleep. I got in trouble in school last year cause I slept through an entire pop quiz and Mr. Owens didn’t wake me up

‘cause he wanted to see how long it’d take me to notice where I was, except I didn’t notice at all ‘cause I stayed up super late watching The Thing- plus the start of the lesson was about the _Civil War_ , which is basically _asking_ for people to fall asleep.”

“When do you breathe?” Spike inquires, only marginally sarcastic. Harris flops onto his pillows with a resigned huff.

“Jesse says you gotta just talk over me when I get going.”

“That or smother you with a pillow.”

“It’d be quieter,” Harris agrees, in wise tones. “But you’d get a real bad migraine.”

“Save the murder for another night, then,” Spike allows, patting the bed before pushing himself up and off it. “Eat something before bed or you’ll wake us both up crawling around the fridge in the middle of the night.”

“I can’t move,” Harris whinges, rolling sideways to make hangdog eyes at him. “I spent all of my life-force getting onto this bed. If I try and get up I think I’m gonna pass out or something. I could totally go Force Ghost on you.”

“It’s two steps to the kitchen. You’ll live.”

“You’re dead, you don’t know how bodies work! You’ve forgotten biology.”

Spike is entirely certain that he is more intimately familiar with the human body in all of its pulsing animation than any middle-schooler will ever be, but contrary to slander he does possess a mite of self-awareness. No gory details to be shared tonight.

Instead, he backtracks to loom over Harris, whose dramatically injured expression shifts satisfyingly towards wariness.

“What?”

“So you’re a cripple now,” Spike says, looming closer, “Cripples still have to eat.”

“Why are you so close?” Harris asks, sort of panicky now. Spike leers, relishing the automatic increase in speed of his pulse the closer he gets.

Simple pleasures and all that. He’s no sadist, unlike most big-shot vamps he knows- just relishes the hunt. Harris makes for an easy prey.

“C’mon, cripple. Since it’s my fault. I’ll just escort you.”

Harris catches on a second too late, two steps behind as per usual, batting very feebly at his arms as Spike scoops him up with greatly exaggerated care. “No, no no, no- hey! _Spike_!”

“Just making my amends for causing your grievous injury,” Spike reminds him, carrying him in a bridal hold towards the sofa, which is an easy task even considering his vampiric strength, since Harris weighs practically nothing. Mark of any self-respecting child that they be all gangly sharp elbows and knees, in his opinion- the morbid obesity of half the snot-noses in the good old US of A is yet another proof of its complete failure as a nation.

Harris’ head flops back in defeat, red-cheeked from the effort.

“C’mon, man, not cool. I’m never gonna live this down.”

This is true; Spike smiles toothily at him. Harris groans and screws his eyes shut.

If it wasn’t so disgustingly beneath him, Spike thinks half an hour later, sink stacked with dirty mugs and an achy Harris bundled up in humiliated resignation with freshly brushed teeth, he really could consider watching people’s kids as a side-gig. He’s got a two for two record so far.

Not his fault he’s so personable. Suck on that, Peaches- he’s evil and people still like him more than the broody twat. Always appreciated that about Harris senior- the enemy of my enemy is a waste of space but at least shares my opinions about what a colossal wanker my grandsire is, as the saying goes.

_You are a demon_ , some more rational part of his brain sees fit to remind him. Not a glorified babysitter. Certainly no friend to children, and even less so to Xander bloody Harris, the fantastic talking man-child.

Friend to no one, strictly speaking. Vampires don’t really do friends. He never used to have to remind himself of all these things.

He needs to get out of this sodding basement, Spike tells himself, annoyed. Better yet: he needs for Xander Harris to revert to his insufferable, lumbering, braindead form, and then maybe trip and impale himself on a suitably phallic-looking cursed knife or something.

Fucking chip. Fucking Initiative. Fucking Slayer.

The last thing he sees before he irately slaps the lights off to go smoke is the top of Harris’ head peeking out from the covers, half-lidded eyes drowsily tracking him as he goes.

The Watcher calls Friday morning, and Spike’s the one who picks up, out of instinct or vaguely malevolent boredom, so he’s the one who gets the memo first: they’ve got it, for real this time, cross his heart and hope to die.

“If you could ensure he’s here once the sun sets,” the Watcher says, all school-master expectation, Spike rolling his eyes on pure muscle memory. “We should have completed preparations before then, but I think it wise that we leave some time to avoid any…”

“Massive cock-ups like Tuesday?”

A beleaguered sigh. “Just make sure he’s ready by sundown.”

“And if I don’t?” Spike inquires, forever the contrarian.

“I’ll compensate you for your services,” the Watcher dismisses, dryly. “Which ought to see you through the dry spell, since I imagine your week has been short on debauchery.”

“No one in this pit knows the meaning of the word,” Spike mutters, irritated, but of course the condescending bastard has hung up on him already. Old fruit- Spike doesn’t know where he gets off thinking he’s so above it all, considering.

Harris takes the news with lacklustre enthusiasm, which puzzles Spike for all of a minute until he remembers his existential angst the previous morning. Bit of a weird one, he imagines, feeling for all the world like he’s the real Harris about to be supplanted. Considering Sunnydale’s track record, the kid could even be right- stranger things have happened.

Spike’s all out of heart-to-hearts for the decade, though, so he sends Harris off to fix breakfast and endures another session of Star Trek, this time devoid of Passions interludes. Harris sticks firmly to the original series, which is probably symbolic but also just annoying- at least the fights are gorier in the later stuff.

“Dude,” Harris argues, when Spike voices this complaint once too many. “It’s my last day here. You can watch your soap opera tomorrow.”

He’s not usually the type to fold in front of a reasonable argument, but he’s not fixing the half-pint any last meal for his death row, so sitting through Arena for the third time seems fair enough. He quite likes Kirk when he’s beating aliens up, anyhow.

They get through lunch and a final few bouts of poker, Harris’ obvious attention deficit manifesting itself with increasing dramatics as the time wears on, as do his nervous jokes. Spike’d take the former over the latter any day- even for a human he’s sure getting accidentally kicked by a fidgeting teenager is far less painful than sitting through Harris’ forced puns.

The added pressure of Harris’ approaching soul death, unfortunately, does nothing to supply them with anything more entertaining to do than lie around and shoot shit. Not that he expected any better from the accursed basement, but a modicum of variety would have been appreciated- Harris’ parents could have had a stroke, or something, kicked some life into the place.

That’d be nice, actually. Some proper, piping hot blood for his pains, since there’s no way in hell Sunnydale ambulances are reaching either of Harris’ parents before their presumable myriad of underlying health problems claim their soul. He’s fairly sure the chip wouldn’t knock him out if he sunk his teeth into a fresh corpse.

Great, now he’s on edge _and_ starving. Winning combination when he can’t even break skin.

“It’s kinda weird how there are almost no aliens in Starfleet in the older stuff,” Harris says, gnawing absently at his thumb. “Like, I know it’s because they didn’t have money for costumes and they didn’t have computers, but in the show there’s totally no way only Spock would be around. Unless maybe Starfleet is kinda space racist?”

“Space racist?” Spike repeats, perhaps a smidge disbelieving. Harris nods pensively.

“Like treating people badly ‘cause of their skin color, ‘cept with aliens.”

“I bloody well know what racism is, whelp.”

“We did assembly about cultural diversity and stuff,” Harris informs him, as a total non-sequitur, eyes glued back on-screen. “The Federation’s crazy big, though. They should have more aliens in Starfleet.”

If you can’t beat them…

“Less humanoids too, ‘f you think about it.”

Fervent nodding. “I _know_ , right?”

“ _No man has gone before_ ’n all…”

“Dude, there should so be like giant blobs and weird bugs instead of kinda painted humans.”

“’S just lazy.”

“Jesse’s so full of it,” Harris mutters, aggrieved but vindicated. “He just wants there to be hot girls in every species.”

“No, hold on, man’s got a point.”

“Well, _yeah_ , but- not _every_ species has to be- _compatible_. If that was the way it was on Earth we’d be into cats and dogs and- sharks.”

“Bit toothy for me, personally.”

“Uh, dude,” Harris says. When Spike quirks a brow he raises two fingers to his teeth.

“Not comparable in the slightest, you twit.”

Harris only crooks his fingers further, making vague hissing noises until Spike growls at him. It stops the hissing but does not kill the twinkle in his eyes, because Harris-the-younger appears to regard his vamp-face the way most people regard knife juggling, or some equally neat trick. He doesn’t know what passes for normalcy amongst humans considering those he’s forced to rub elbows with.

“Spike?”

The tentative tone does not bode well.

“What?”

Harris squirms, looks askance. “When I’m grown up, we’re still friends, right?”

Oh, hell.

He tries for aloof. “We’ve been through this, whelp.”

Awkward, embarrassed mumble. “Yeah, I know, I just- the way you guys talk it kinda sounds like we don’t-“

“‘M a _demon_ ,” Spike stresses slowly, obfuscating hard. “Don’t tend to do regular relationships, ’s all.”

Harris sucks in a breath, scrubbing at his hair, then squints dubiously in his direction. “But, like- I don’t get it.”

“Get _what_? How a vampire’s got a different life experience to you lot?”

“No, not- like, I don’t get how that stuff’s different for you. ‘Cause- I mean, Buffy and Willow and stuff told me about you guys- vampires, right- and how you don’t have souls and all that, and that Angelus guy seems like a massive douche-“

Ah, universal truths.

“-but, um. Were you, like, made wrong?”

Spike swivels, stares.

“Was I _what_?”

“Okay, that- that sounded bad,” Harris rushes, gone all _mea culpa_ as Spike’s glower kicks in. “I don’t mean you’re bad. Or- I guess you are bad, but like, on purpose, so-“

“ _Made wrong?_ ”

“It’s just you don’t really seem like a normal vampire!” Harris exclaims, defensive. Spike’s nostrils flare; Harris pushes on.

“‘Cause- this week I guess you said you’d eat me or kill me once or twice but otherwise you were super not creepy and murdery. And Dawn says you’re like that with her too and you’re definitely not secretly trying to kill her, so- like, you’re cool with humans when you wanna be.”

“All vampires are perfectly capable of ‘being cool with humans’,” Spike spells out, distantly wondering whether Harris is in fact mentally stunted. “Do it all the bloody time to _lure ‘em in_.”

“That’s not what I mean, though, like- you actually like Dawn,” Harris protests, looking back-footed but resolute in a very typical manner. “And that’s- I mean, you love your girlfriend, right? And your mom too?”

“Course I bleedin’ do,” Spike snaps, fangs twitching as his lip curls. Harris nods rapidly.

“But that’s all _after_ you got bit and lost your soul and stuff. So- I don’t get how, unless you’re like- y’know, a bad vampire.”

_Boom, headshot_ , Harris Prime’s voice declares proudly in some godforsaken corner of Spike’s mind as he stares at the gormless expression on the kid’s face. He’s too taken aback to react; a growl forces its way from his throat out of a purely cornered instinct.

“Um, I don’t mean you’re _bad_! I’m sure you’re good at being a vampire, it’s just you’re bad at not being good. No, I mean- not good, but bad at being bad-“

“Harris,” Spike manages, head throbbing. “ _Shut up._ ”

Harris shuts up. Spike inhales, exhales, remembers vaguely that he does not breathe, and clamps his jaw shut, teeth grinding audibly. Bloody- buggering- presumptive-

Harris shuffles.

“You’re kind of like-“

“ _Harris_.”

“You’re kind of like Spock!” Harris blurts, quickly, scurrying back some when Spike turns a full glare on him. “Like how he totally has emotions and stuff even if he’s a Vulcan-”

“ _Spock_ ’s half human,” Spike snaps, on instinct, and then really properly wishes he could stake himself.

He thinks it shows on his face, because Harris stops looking mildly concerned for his own well-being and starts looking uncertainly guilty.

“Um, I’m just- I’m gonna go pee.”

Spike sags into his chair. Harris scurries by.

“Um, Spike?”

Beat.

“Sorry?”

Spike doesn’t throw the television at him, but it’s a near thing.

Harris behaves for the rest of the afternoon, miraculously. Spike kills time staunchly pretending like there was nothing armour-piercing or existentially provocative about his earlier line of questioning. For the most part they just sit in relative silence thinking their respective thoughts, which is probably the most normalcy Spike’s had all week. The closest he ever comes to getting along with his Harris is when both of them are too tired and/or depressed to make a nuisance out of themselves and the telly’s on.

The sun starts to set after dinner (the last pack of instant noodles; Spike passes), Harris’ previous nerves sky-rocketing into the complete inability to sit still without behaving like a sodding spastic. He stops being so quiet then, too, launching right back into the usual stress-diatribes on any given inanity, like whether he should leave his adult self a note in case he has no recollection of the past week and needs to be reassured that he’s not in a dream or being mind-controlled.

“A note from his younger self’s not gonna change his mind on either of those,” Spike judges, privately stuck on the horrifying notion that Harris _could_ remember any part of the past week.

Harris the child is so far removed from his older self in most ways that matter that the thought that he wouldn’t be conveniently amnesiac upon his return had completely faded from his mind at some point during the week. If he’d thought to recall that this is _Sunnydale_ , and everything in his unlife has been a complete fucking disaster since he got here, he’d have done this differently- bit less with the personal anecdotes, bit more with the boundaries? If Harris remembers- if _Harris_ remembers-

Triple-damn every single Te’hre’Wehsite to ever set foot on the mortal coil! If he ever sees one again he’s strangling it slowly with every single one of its twelve intestines.

His murderous mood doesn’t get to hit full stride; the phone rings its annoying little ditty to announce that the hour is upon them, and Harris reluctantly allows Spike to haul him out into the night, feet dragging as he glances home-wards.

Sunnydale is a dump; they barely encounter anyone as they make their way over to the Watcher’s despite it being after sundown. Anyone who’s out clearly isn’t hanging around their parents’ driveway, which says something about the current state of his existence.

Oh, bugger him, he’s really starting to sound like Angel now.

“You smoke a lot,” Harris comments, as Spike takes a pissed-off drag from his cigarette, smoke trailing high above them against the cool air as Harris’ eyes track it curiously.

“S’pose I do.”

“Why?”

He shrugs, gives Harris a look. “You want to give it a go?”

Harris seems startled by the offer, sputtering a little in response.

“Uh, no thanks. I’m pretty sure it’s really bad for you. It can totally mess up your lungs and stuff.”

“Right,” Spike draws out, eyeing Harris’ clueless little face. “Good thing I don’t need those.”

“Wh- oh, right,” Harris responds, and then stares would-be covertly at Spike until he nearly sprains an ankle tripping off the sidewalk.

Spike snorts. Harris reddens, mumbles something wordless and shoves his hands into his pockets.

This is the problem, Spike considers, taking another drag more resignedly as Harris falls silent. Kid Harris lacks any malice. Makes it harder to remember that Harris the man-child is a bastard as well as just obnoxious.

He is, though. It’s one of Spike’s primary reasons for finding him so insufferable. Harris is far too dull and New World to ever be actively evil- fancies himself a white hat, and all that- but despite the not-so-hidden dark sides to all of the other Slayerettes, Harris is the one who takes the most pleasure out of being a twat. It’s surface-level psychology: the wanker has a plethora of self-esteem issues nebulously tied to his masculinity and his sad little life, so he lords his supposed goodness over any and all creature of the darkness with as much snotty contempt as he can muster. So maybe it’s hypocritical of Spike to begrudge another man his sour sadism, but _he_ makes no claims of moral purity, so he reckons he’s allowed it.

“Spike?” actual Harris is inquiring, sore ankle apparently forgotten as he scrunches his nose in thought. It kills Spike’s internal monologue a bit, not that he’ll admit to entertaining any such thing.

“What?”

“So- what are you gonna do when you get your chip out?”

Given Harris’ chronic foot-in-mouth syndrome, Spike was expecting worse, but the question stops him a little short anyways; he falls back on stock repartee as he searches for a better answer.

“Rip all your throats out?”

“I meant seriously,” Harris complains, squinting at a nearby gaggle of teens as they stand yapping in someone’s driveway and shifting closer to Spike as though to reinforce their association. Spike can’t fault him for it, he supposes- if he was as stylistically disturbed as Harris he’d want to bask in his presence too.

“I _was_ serious,” Spike replies, though he doesn’t labour the point in the face of Harris’ blissful lack of concern, staring up at the cloudy night sky as they walk. “Dunno, really. Not staying in Sunnydale, that’s for sure.”

“I guess you’re gonna go see your girlfriend and then do a bunch of cool vampire stuff,” Harris suggests, nodding in pre-emptive understanding. “Hey, how do vampires travel, anyways? Aren’t planes super dangerous with the sun and stuff?”

“Night flights,” Spike retorts, rolling his eyes with little gusto as he tries not to scowl too transparently. Normally Harris’ braindead description would be pretty damn spot on, but of late…

He’s not much one for planning, is the thing. Man of action and all that. He has _plans_ , it’s just- not so big on the details. He’ll get the chip out, and then he’ll tear every soldier-boy in the vicinity into oozing organs, and then he’ll handle the Scoobies, and then he’ll get out of Sunnydale for once and for all and get Dru back. Course he will. Not like antler-boy’s any competition, and Angelus is out of the running, and- it’s Dru, of course she’ll come back around. Bloody well show her who’s demon enough, when he shows up with the Initiative’s blood on his hands- could bring her the Slayer’s head as a trophy, if he wanted. How’s that for a plan?

“Um, good?” Harris tries, which alerts Spike to the fact he’s devolved into muttering to himself, jaw clamping shut around his cigarette. “Maybe not the part with Buffy’s head, though. Or- anyone’s head. Who’s antler-boy?”

“Chaos demon,” Spike grits out, sour. “They’re all- slime and antlers. Disgusting.”

“Ooky,” Harris says, as if everything about him wasn’t enough of a give-away that he spend his formative years tailing Willow Rosenberg. “I wish I got to see more demons this week. Like, I guess I kinda saw the Te- the Thingy-Wingys, but I was kinda passed out and confused cause of all the shouting and fighting and grown-up Willow and stuff.”

“Watcher’s library not enough for you?”

“Those are books,” Harris replies, with the dismissiveness of a born and bred American idiot. “And they’re not even good. The pictures are really bad and half of the time it’s all mysterious runes or the page is missing or it’s a riddle or something.”

Spike won’t argue with _that_ point. “You realise your girlfriend’s a demon, boy wonder? _I’m_ a demon.”

“Yeah,” Harris says, hesitating, “But Anya’s not a demon anymore, and you’re- I mean, you guys don’t look like demons. You just kinda look like you drive a motorbike or play in a rock band.”

“’S not inaccurate,” Spike sniffs, mollified. “You’ve seen the vamp face, though.”

“Yeah,” Harris agrees, grinning to himself. “That was cool.”

Geek, Spike thinks, without a mite of fondness. He leaves the stub trailing sparks in the middle of the street.

They get to the Magic Box in good time, Harris’ shoulders stiffening as the bell jingles, eyes restlessly gliding over the rows of books until he sets sight on Red and smiles awkwardly, rubbing his arm behind his back.

“Xander! Ready for the big dig?”

“Hey, Will.”

“Oh, oh, before I forget- welcome to the Magic Box!” Red exclaims, clapping her hands together. “It’s Giles’ shop but it’s basically Scooby HQ.”

  
“Indeed,” Rupert intones, nodding in Spike’s direction and giving Harris a slightly awkward smile, to Spike’s amusement. Yeah, he can imagine the Ripper’s not so touchy-feely with kids. “We’ve set up in the back, if you’ll follow through.”

Harris obediently shuffles after him, glancing around and perking up at the sound of Dawn’s voice from behind the doors, Spike hanging back until it’s just him and Red standing in the store-front.

“You coming?” Red inquires, curiously. Spike rolls his neck, shrugs a silent no.

“Unless you need something.”

“No, you’re all good,” Red reassures, looking a little disappointed as she gnaws her lip. “But-“

“I’m only going outside for a fag,” Spike sighs, not in the mood to savour her predictable qualms about letting him on his merry way. He’ll be in charge of dragging Harris home if this doesn’t work, anyhow.

“Oh, right,” Red says, transparently relieved, fixing her frilly sleeves with renewed spirit. “We’ll shout if anything- you know. You sure you don’t wanna…”

“Fag,” Spike repeats, clicking his lighter. Red gives up, toying with her barrette.

“Right. Yeah. Okay.”

He’s halfway to the door when she abruptly calls after him.

“Spike!”

“ _What_?”

“I just wanted to say thanks,” Red rushes, hands clenched into earnest fists as Spike blinks. “For looking after Xander. You’ve been really nice to him. And you guys don’t exactly get along, so.”

“Oh, spare me,” Spike groans, only barely resisting backing up out of the room because he has a reputation to uphold. “Just made sure he didn’t die, ’s all. Nothing nice about it.”

“Okay,” Red says, big brown eyes all abject sympathetic warmth. “Thanks for making sure he didn’t die, then.”

“Not like I had a choice,” Spike snaps, and then absconds in an unruffled fashion that definitely does not involve any stomping or slamming doors.

He’s long stopped pacing by the time the back door creaks open, light footsteps alerting him to his visitor before she announces herself.

“Spike?”

“It done?” Spike asks, making ready to stub his third cigarette before the Bit shakes her head.

“No, almost. Buffy said she wanted me out of the room in case it ‘got ugly’.”

She accompanies the statement with air-quotes, pitching her voice in a way that sounds almost nothing like the Slayer but makes Spike snort regardless.

“Surprised you’re even here to begin with.”

“I wanted to come,” Dawn says, folding to sit next to him. “To say bye to Xander.”

“What is it with you lot,” Spike curses, shifting in irritation. “He’s not bloody _dying_ , they’re fixing him.”

“Yeah, I guess,” the girl mumbles, a little stung. “But this Xander’s not normal Xander.”

“It is a trade down,” Spike agrees smugly, getting a foul look for it.

“Not what I meant. It’s just- different. Geez, you’re in a mood tonight.”

“Demon,” Spike reminds her, redundantly, because this never seems to stick. “Chipped. Living in Harris’ dump of a basement.”

“Like, I miss normal Xander,” the Bit continues, toying with her laces. “And it’s good we can fix this and there’s no hole in the space-time continuum or whatever. Only it’s kinda sucky that this Xander can’t stay too.”

“One of him is more than enough,” Spike says, though he takes a conciliatory drag rather than push the point when the Niblet turns her woe-is-me gaze on him.

“It was nice, is all. Everyone else gets to have friends who know about this stuff.”

He comes so near to mockingly asking how that’s supposed to make him feel that he has to cough a little around the hasty intake of smoke that follows, eyes prickling and demon snarling.

He’s a bleeding embarrassment. Strike the whole speech to Harris- ’s no wonder Dru’s danced off to greener pastures. It’s all Sunnydale, he wants to protest, but maybe Harris was right- maybe it isn’t, maybe it’s him, maybe it’s just that until now he’s never slowed down long enough for it to catch up to him. He’s lived over a century revelling in the simple bloody pleasures of unlife, and he spends a handful of weeks around some meaningless do-gooders and starts playing nice like it matters how they feel. Starts doubting, when he never doubts; starts wondering how he might do the Slayer in without seeing the look on Dawn’s face afterwards. Starts remembering things like guilt.

All it takes is a morsel of kindness and a help-me look in his direction.

His hand is shaking with directionless anger as he pulls the cigarette from between clenched teeth, jaw grinding as the stub burns at his fingers.

A fleeting heat flares through his leg, eyes abruptly catching on Dawn’s knee as she shifts next to him, and his mind goes quiet as he stares through her curtain of hair, pale downcast eyes staring unseeingly into the night.

“It’s cold out,” the Niblet observes plaintively, so human it hurts, and Spike exhales an unnecessary breath, crushing his stub against the Watcher’s steps as smoke sifts between their legs.

“Take your word for it.”

The distant sounds of magic having stopped about forty seconds earlier, he doesn’t jump when she does at the sound of the door opening, staring fixedly outwards as she whips around.

“Did it work?”

“Yes,” Anyanka announces, with all the heightened emotion of one commenting on the weather. “Xander is now back to his normal body and above the legal age of consent.”

“Oh, good,” Dawn starts, huffing a little with relief as she rises. “Is he okay? How’s he feeling? We got him clothes that fit this time, right?”

“Yes. Rupert seemed to think this was very important.”

“I guess he- Spike, you’re going?”

“Reckon Harris can find his way back to his own house,” Spike shrugs, turning to face the pair as they stand mirroring one another by the doorframe. Anyanka, bless her lack of soul, looks supremely unconcerned- probably counting seconds until she gets her hands back on Harris’ thoroughly underwhelming body. The Niblet has the gall to look a little startled amidst the rising disappointment.

None of his bloody concern, though. His services are no longer required under the threat of bodily harm; he’s not going to sit around playing friendly vampire-sitter if he’s getting nothing for it.

His head throbs with a murderous violence all the way back through the solider-infested streets. He’s not a begging sort, but if he could beg for one sodding thing to go his way this year, it’d be that Te’hre’Wesites enjoy a bout of amnesia with their cures.

He can tell from Harris’ very footsteps that his wish has not been granted as he stirs out of a deep sleep sometime the next day. There’s something to the faltering rhythm that reads like he’s trying to get out before he hears him, as opposed to the usual way he stomps around without a care for Spike’s beauty sleep.

Spike spares a moment to squint in malcontented disorientation at his surroundings, feeling ill-rested and quite convinced that it’s the constant see-sawing into diurnal territory that’s doing him in, then very reluctantly shifts in his chair, rolling his neck. Tempting as it is to pretend to sleep, he couldn’t live with the shame of resorting to hiding away from _Xander Harris._

His shifting, naturally, catches Harris’ attention, who stills audibly where he’d been shuffling around. Spike silently curses out every single person responsible for getting him into his current position and then twists to contemplate his roommate where he stands glancing around the room.

“Hit your growth spurt overnight?”

Harris starts, gaze snapping to his, and Spike very fixedly keeps his expression just this side of taunting. He refuses to think about the amount of ammunition he’s handed the bastard over the past week- if he gets under his skin fast enough Harris’ll be too hissy to use it.

“Spike,” Harris stalls, redundantly, shifting uncomfortably. “Thought you’d still be asleep.”

Not much for an assault. Spike only narrows his eyes a little before shrugging. “You reek of salt and desperation.”

“Yeah, well,” Harris mutters, tugging at his shirt. “I had to go beg all of my bosses not to fire me for taking an impromptu holiday. Pretty sure the cinema’s replaced me.”

This is unfortunate news; Spike was enjoying the odd hours he worked and the relative inoffensiveness of popcorn as a work-related odour. “Sleep over at the Watcher’s?”

“No, Ahn’s,” Harris says, vaguely, before seeming to remember himself. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Spike only snorts. Good for Anyanka.

“Believe me, I have no interest in the sordid details.”

“They’re not sordid,” Harris retorts, irked set to his thick brow. “And anyways you’re one to talk, with all the action you’ve been getting recently.”

“I get plenty of action, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, right,” Harris snorts, looking well pleased with himself. “Impotent vamps losing more than just their munchies, methinks.”

“Yeah?” Spike snaps back, looking pointedly around the room. “Impotence comes in many a form, mate.”

Harris’ expression sours gratifyingly. “And you’re freeloading off me in the meantime, _mate_ , so where’s that put you on the leaderboard?”

Dickhead. Spike’ll take great pleasure in stomping his teeth in when he gets the chance.

“I’ve been forcibly incapacitated. What’s your excuse?”

Harris scoffs disbelievingly, runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, _that’s_ rich, coming from the guy who’s only a semi- _capacitated_ -“

He cuts himself off gracelessly, with an awkwardness that rankles more than whatever low-level insult he’s stopped himself from blurting out. Spike’s lip curls violently, chair creaking under his hand as he pushes himself to his feet, unwilling to sit peering upwards at the idiot.

Harris tracks his movements warily, but before Spike can do more than loom the human’s sighed heavily enough to undercut the tension, hand falling from where it’d been frozen and leaving his hair a buttery mess.

“Look, Spike, I’m not trying to fight with you, okay, so drop the-“ Vague gesturing. “For a second, will you?”

“Who’s fighting?” Spike retorts, slouching against the wall, Harris rolling his eyes before rocking awkwardly back on his heels.

“Just,” Harris starts, eyes flickering everywhere but his face until they finally land somewhere just off Spike’s jaw. “Just, look, I know you’re thrilled to have witnessed the Xander Harris Happy Meal experience, and I know I’m never, ever hearing the end of this, because the universe has it in for me, but let it be known that I refuse to be held responsible for the actions of my semi-pubescent self, okay? It’s like in crime shows where they get off for murder because they plead insanity- I was not of able body and mind and it’s frankly insulting that everyone sees enough of a similarity to judge us by-“

It’s a good thing neither Peaches nor Darla is there to witness it hit him, or they’d have fuel enough to keep their condescension burning bright for another century yet. Retrospectively he can admit that it might have occurred to him sooner that where he is in agonies over the humiliation of his babysitting stint, _Harris_ was the proverbial baby being sat.

It’s so bleeding obvious now he’s not distracted by his own stupid qualms that he’s abruptly relieved there’s no one but a gibbering Harris to see it. _Harris_ is the one who spent the week fawning over vampires and asking for nicknames and making Spike disgusting tea; _Harris_ is the one with the deadbeat parents upstairs. It’s _Spike’s_ advantage to press. His joke of a captivity has really done a number on him for him to have let that elude him for a second.

He can tell Harris is still going by the hum he’s blocking out, second nature by now; when he looks up he finds him displaying all the usual symptoms of verbal diarrhoea.

Never let it be said that Spike isn’t one for a mercy kill.

“Oi, Harris. Shut up.”

Harris shuts up, looking somewhere between offended and relieved. Spike smirks, demon rumbling contentedly. Prey and predator. Like it should be.

“No idea what you were going on about, but you’ve got nothing to worry about, all right?”

Harris’ expression does some acrobatics, sticking the landing on incredulous.

“Nothing to worry about?”

“Yeah,” Spike says, very charitably. “Wouldn’t torment my good close friend.”

God, he’s missed the thrill of satisfaction that comes with a solid upper hand. Ever since those sodding Initiative wankers all he’s had to go off are some low digs that lose their sting as soon as someone remembers his bark is currently worse than his bite. This, though? This is manna sent from above. The way Harris’ face goes blank with momentary incomprehension before it sets in is delectable.

“You- you- what did I just say? That wasn’t me!”

Despite the outrage, there’s desperation more than combativeness in the way his arms windmill, and Spike smiles broadly.

“Oh, come on, Harris. Let’s not fight. Why don’t you fix us some tea?”

“Screw you!” Harris yelps, stepping forward defensively before thinking better of it and retreating hastily. “I was a kid, I didn’t know who you were-“

“I can show you the vamp face again, since you think it’s so cool-“ Spike starts, pushing off the wall to prowl smugly towards the fridge. Harris makes a noise like a kettle.

“Oh, you think this is so _funny_ , don’t you, you sicko-“

“Say,” Spike interjects, rummaging through the fridge. “We’re a tad low on beer, mate. Think you should do a grocery run before I end up finding some other way to kill time.”

“No, no way, nuhuh, you are not blackmailing me with this,” Harris sputters, meeting Spike’s irrepressible smirk with miserable disbelief. “You- you- oh, who am I kidding, of course you are.”

“Evil,” Spike says, pointing at himself. Harris groans with intense melodrama and buries his face in his hands.

“What did I do in a past life? What? Eat babies? You eat babies! You eat babies as a fun morning snack, and life just says well done Spike, enjoy your nutritious infant, just have a nice long unlife skulking around in your stupid leather jacket feasting on newborns while Xander dies of a stress-related aneurysm in his twenties, and while you’re at it why don’t you get a straw so you can suck him dry once he keels over-“

“Won’t say no,” Spike agrees, shutting the fridge to better enjoy the nervous breakdown. Malicious serenity has settled over him like a well-worn blanket.

“Oh, sure, Giles needs his bathtub, but Xander doesn’t need his sanity, no, Xander’s brain is expendable here-“

He’s gone full third person, nice. Spike studiously avoids thinking about any instances where he may or may not have done the same.

“You know what? No,” Harris decides, abruptly, clearly getting into his woe-is-me soliloquy by this point. “I refuse to negotiate with terrorists. Go on! Do it! Tell them all the juicy details of my past embarrassments. Can’t be worse than anything else they’ve seen me do lately.”

“Sure about that?” Spike inquires, quirking a brow. “Not one moment this past week you’re not so keen on sharing with the class?”

Harris opens his mouth and then shuts it, gaze darkening abruptly, which gets them on the same page fast.

“If you tell any of them about any of that, Spike, I swear to god-“

There’s an added layer to the expected bitter anger that Spike wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, but he finds himself slightly wrong-footed anyways, having never seriously considered the idea of sharing Harris’ daddy issues with the group. Even his darkest meanest demons know it’d gain him nothing- the others would all rally around poor little Xander, and Harris would make his life hell to the best of his abilities for as long as Spike remains stuck in his rancid crypt. It shouldn’t surprise him that Harris immediately assumes the worst of him, though, presumptive wanker that he is.

His brief hesitation costs him, because Harris pounces, eyes gone hard and satisfied.

“You say one word about my parents and I’ll tell them all about yours.”

It’s meant to rile Spike, which he knows, but the knowledge does not make him bristle any less, snarling on instinct.

“Do that and I’ll rip your throat out.”

“Yeah?” Harris inquires, staunch now. “You and whose army?”

There is some uncanny symmetry in their spiteful to and fro; Spike shakes off the fleeting thought to pull himself to his full height and stare the human dead in the eyes.

“I’m a vampire. I’m _immortal_. Means someday, somehow, I will be out of this shithole, and free of this chip. And it doesn’t make a difference to me if it’s now or fifty years down the line when you’ve been divorced twice and still live in your parents’ basement, but I will find you and I’ll gut you.”

They glare at each other. Harris smells of fear, but only faintly, not so much because the threat hasn’t landed but because it’s drowned out by an impotent sort of anger. It sits with weighty satisfaction on Spike’s shoulders- the human knows he’s right.

“Yeah, well,” Harris says, after a beat, jaw working and spots of frustrated colour high in his cheeks. “Until then, you enjoy sitting here and feeling good about how crappy my life is. I’ll be going for walks in the daylight and not feeding off bags of pig blood in someone who hates me’s basement.”

It’s not quite so low a blow as he might have gone for, which Spike wonders at, even as he curls his lip and steps back dismissively. He hates having to look up at the idiot whenever they argue; reminds him of Angelus, despite how insulting the comparison is to all involved parties.

If life wasn’t such a bitch to him he’d take the momentary break in tempo to exit the building with a scoff and a slamming of the door, but of course it’s in the middle of the day, so he has to content himself with stalking back to his chair and turning the television on as annoyingly as he can. Harris just mutters some inanity to himself as he lugs himself over to the shower, door shutting moodily behind him.

The Passions he’s recorded across the week should by all rights prove a good enough distraction to his annoyance, but even the histrionics of Tabitha Lenox and the titular passions of Luis and Sheridan can’t quite seem to refocus his attentions. Bloody great day he’s having- had the opportunity to kick the dog and the dog bit his sodding ankle.

Not especially hard, considering. Stalemate’s sort of a natural conclusion when neither of them can land a good blow without facing immediate whiplash.

He wouldn’t voice this aloud, but he sort of thinks Pint-Sized Harris had a point what with the existential dread. It does feel like someone’s gone and died on him. Though that might just be the smell.

The Unfortunately Real Harris emerges from the shower sometime later just as Spike’s beginning to lose himself somewhat in the on-screen drama, bathroom door opening with a customary groan as the smell of cheap soap and nice clean human filters through distractingly.

Since they’ve apparently resorted to their “if I say nothing maybe we can both pretend we’re here alone” mode of coexistence, Spike keeps his attention firmly fixed on the television as Harris bangs about behind him, despite his immediate urge to whip around in the chair and scowl at him. Lumbering oaf.

His hearing being what it is, he can’t help but track Harris’ movements anyways as he plods over to his bed, then back to his bathroom, then to the kitchen, where he pauses and swears.

“Oh, ick, how much crusted blood are on these things?”

Not so much with the silence then. Spike shrugs very loudly.

“Not the maid.”

“I’m gonna have to throw at least one of these away!” Harris retorts, beleaguered. “Seriously, how long does it take to scrub a mug after you use it?”

“Could’ve done your share of washing up ‘f it bothered you.”

“Woah, woah, woah. First of all, blood mugs are _not_ my share, and second of all, I was _twelve_. Did you wash blood mugs at twelve, Spike? You probably had people wash your silverware for you at twelve. But here in present day America, we don’t make anyone wash our blood mugs for us, because we are a civilised people, and we respect our Amendment right not to touch crusted blood. Isn’t that swell?”

“Quit whining, ‘m trying to watch this.”

“Oh, right, pardon me for interrupting the high caliber dialogue of Passions. Here’s a recap: she’s cheating on him with the brother.”

Annoyingly, his needling is entirely accurate. Spike increases the volume.

Harris clatters pointedly around the kitchen for a bit, all scrubbing noises and muttered complaint, then makes a show of cleaning up the kitchen despite the fact that he’s a bloody slob and Spike keeps the place ten times cleaner than it otherwise would be.

It’s because Harris has all the usual grace and volume control of a bull in a china shop that Spike notices when he abruptly comes to a stop, and curiosity prickles at him like a bad itch.

Impulse control’s never been his forte, and today’s already been pushing it. He turns around to squint at Harris, finds him staring down at the table with a convoluted frown on his expressive face.

Poker cards, Spike realises, wary and embarrassed all at once. Harris seems to snap himself out of it, shaking his head as he reaches to pack the cards away; Spike looks back to Passions before he can be caught watching.

It’s a funny realisation that he actually taught Harris to play poker.

It’s because he’s concentrating so hard on appearing fixated on the screen that his reflexes fail him; something hits him in the head before he can think to snatch it out of the air, falling into his lap unceremoniously as Spike snarls in surprise.

It’s a box of cigarettes. Nice ones at that.

He can’t help himself; he turns to stare. Harris is stubbornly folding the card box shut, pointedly not looking in his direction, but the lines of his shoulders are tense.

“What’s this then?” Spike asks, because he is incapable of not prodding at a raw nerve. Harris stiffens, takes just a second too long to casually turn around and cross his arms.

“Figured you’d chain-smoked your way through the rest, so.”

Spike fixes him, not bothered to call out either the fact that Harris regularly complains about the smell or the fact that this doesn’t explain his sudden compulsion to fix Spike’s cravings out of the kindness of his heart. Harris squirms a little, looking both annoyed and uncomfortable.

“Before you went all predictable gloating on me I was gonna say th-“ The word seems to catch in his teeth, but he forces it out, eyes skirting Spike. “ _Thanks_. I guess. I know you only behaved yourself because you were scared Buffy was going to rip your dick off, but Dawn had a nice week and all that, so. Enjoy your cancer sticks as a token of my brief delusions of gratitude.”

Apparently Harris’ awkwardness is contagious; Spike finds himself staring down at the cigarettes the moment the human manages to build up the gonads to look at him. He’s not sure when anyone last thought to thank him in a non-sarcastic manner- he doesn’t exactly often try to do things worth thanking him for. Quickly rescinded though the thanks were, it’s a disturbing feeling.

He remembers Harris is staring expectantly his way a little too late, tries not to sound like he’s clearing his throat.

“Yeah, well. Don’t expect this’ll stop me from calling in favours for however long I’m stuck here.”

Harris snorts disparagingly, sounding a little relieved. “You? Not milking everyone around you for doing the bare minimum for kicks? That’ll be the day.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Spike says, pocketing the cigarettes and feeling himself relax a little for the first time since Harris proper made his ungainly reappearance in his life.

He has the night free, he thinks, as Harris exhales would-be silently and goes to rearrange his wardrobe into something a little less pubescent. Patrol’ll be a good time- he bets the place’ll be teeming with demons, since the Slayer was distracted by the Harris conundrum for a while. Be a nice change of pace from play-fighting with a child. His demon growls particularly eagerly at the thought.

He has got to stop thinking of himself in parts. Twice-damned chip.

“God, I forgot Dawnie actually got me adult clothes. Is it just me or is this giving you NSYNC extra?”

Spike squints over his shoulder, snorts at the mesh ensemble. “More like NSYNC reject.”

“Yeah,” Harris breathes, on a laugh, before screwing his face up. “Is it worrying that we know what that would look like?”

Spike shrugs. Least of his concerns.

“Bet you’re too chicken to wear that out.”

“What? C’mon, what woman wouldn’t love to see...my entire naked body through this shirt?” Harris questions, voice rising with realisation. “Ick. On second thoughts maybe I’ll tell Dawn this got lost in a fire.”

Spike considers threatening to expose him in a lie, then thinks about how little he wants to see Harris in a white mesh shirt. Nummy treat though he may debatably be, he is not one Spike wants to see trounced up like a steak. Maybe if one of the girls…

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop thinking it.”

“Nancy.”

“Ronald. Or are we not naming Reagans?”

Spike casts him a foul look when he decides to throw himself down on the sofa.

“Don’t you have a job to crawl back to?”

“Yeah, well. Fired from this one, next one’s not till tomorrow. And I’m not so big on learning what the next apocalypse is until tonight. Man, I can’t believe I got a week off from the existential dread and I didn’t even appreciate it.” Harris shakes his head, sprawls more. “What is it with you guys and the apocalypse anyways? Hellworld doesn’t sound all that fun to me. Aren’t there any demons who can appreciate the perks of having drive-thrus and girls who don’t eat flesh?”

“Don’t lump me in with those louts,” Spike grouses. “Never been fussed to bring about the end times myself.”

“Guess not,” Harris sighs, going sarcastic. “Why can’t demons all be as reasonable as you are?”

“‘F only all of humanity had your sparkling wits, maybe we’d be less keen on destroying your race.”

“Ouch, fangface, hit me where it hurts.”

If he doesn’t put an end to it they’ll be bickering until nightfall; Spike gestures to the television pointedly.

“Sort of trying to watch something here.”

“Sort of my television you’re trying to watch something on,” Harris ripostes, gesticulating. “Unless you want to start paying your share of cable.”

Yeah, _right._

“If you say the words Star Trek, I don’t care if I get the world’s most splitting headache, I am knocking your sodding teeth out.”

“Wasn’t going to!” Harris protests, though he looks faintly embarrassed. “Just not this stupid soap stuff, seriously. If she miscarries for the third time I’m gonna lose it.”

“This coming from the man who got all weepy about Kirk’s hippie girlfriend stepping into traffic.”

“Hey, don’t smack-talk City on the Edge of Time. You’re not fooling me with this geek-based harassment, anyways, you made a Star Wars reference the day I met you!”

“Did _not_ ,” Spike protests, racking his brains. When the hell had he met Harris, anyways? Sometime on Halloween, maybe? He’d been somewhat otherwise preoccupied.

“Did too,” Harris is saying, though, accusatory and a little smug. “You told Angel he was like your _Yoda_.”

Oh, bugger, he had. “Oi, hang on, how’d you even hear that?”

“Oh, come on, seriously? You almost bit me!” Harris sputters, waving in the general direction of his neck. “I was an unwilling third party to your weird posturing vamp sandwich for like ten minutes!”

“That was you?” Spike inquires, skeptical. He does remember some dark-haired human flailing around in Peaches’ grasp, but he’d been a bit focused on not decking the tosser in the face at the time. On second thought he seems to recall said human being unable to shut his trap for the entirety of his captivity. “Oh, right. Yeah. Idiot really thought I’d fall for that act.”

“Teach me to ever follow his lead again,” Harris mutters. “Point being: very much you. Very much Star Wars reference.”

“Look, the previous place we’d bunked at only had the trilogy to watch, all right-“

“Yeah, but you called him your Yoda, dude, that’s a little step up from-“

“It was the first thing that came to mind, wasn’t expecting to be sprung the bastard-“

“Also, I don’t even think Yoda makes sense as an analogy, like, at all, you should have gone for a Sith.“

“Maybe Darth Sidious doesn’t roll off the tongue!” Spike protests, and then catches himself debating Star Wars semantics and glares warningly at Harris.

“Geek,” Harris pronounces, triumphant.

“‘M going to smoke through this whole pack inside,” Spike threatens. “And spit in your coffee.”

“Gross,” Harris groans, sinking further into the worn cushions. For a strange second he looks even more like a child than usual, nose scrunched up and gaze fixing curiously on the television screen; Spike’s smirk wavers. “Wait, now the gardener guy is in on this?”

“He has a name,” Spike retorts, resigned to spend the foreseeable future catching up on Passions with the addition of a never-ending stream of commentary from the next couch over. After the week he’s had, it’s almost a welcome return to routine.

He needs to get the hell out of Sunnydale.

**Author's Note:**

> Buffy dialogue is so fun to write. As is 90s slang.
> 
> Just FYI, Xander-junior spends this entire fic alternating between tripping over himself at how hot and cool everyone around him is, most definitely Spike-inclusive, and having bouts of deep insecurity regarding his role in the group. What is adolescence if not glaring defects of the psyche crystallising? 
> 
> Spike being kind of a geek is also something that amuses me because the whole Yoda thing (and other pop culture references) are just canon, and I can't imagine he'd take anyone pointing it out well. 
> 
> Incidentally I love the Scoobies, dysfunctional though they are, but I especially enjoy Dawn's dynamic with her two honorary brothers (let's firmly ignore the comics route on that). And she really could have used a friend around.


End file.
